Lingala

Story

Lingala is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family that was born in the 1880s when Belgian colonial officials and their African auxiliaries created a simplified trade pidgin along the Congo River, drawing its core vocabulary from the Bobangi language spoken by river traders. The name 'Lingala' was formally proposed by Catholic missionaries around 1903 and gradually replaced the earlier colonial term 'Bangala'. The language's cultural reach was turbocharged in the mid-20th century by Congolese rumba, a genre born in Kinshasa and Brazzaville that blended Bantu rhythms with Cuban son and swept across Africa, and whose lyrics are almost exclusively in Lingala. Today it is one of four national languages of the DR Congo, the lingua franca of the Congolese and Angolan armed forces, and remains the dominant language of the global soukous and Afrobeats scenes that trace their roots to the Congo Basin.

At a glance

• Also known as: Lingála
• Family: Niger-Congo
• Region: Central Africa
• Speakers: 45M (total speakers (l1 plus l2) estimated; approximately 20 million l1 speakers, 25 to 30 million l2 speakers across the two congos and beyond)
• Writing system: Latin
• Greeting: Mbote (hello)

Spoken in

DR Congo, Republic of Congo, Angola, Central African Republic

Common questions