Language Information

Lingala is the main lingua franca of northern Zaire, spoken (usually as a second language) by as many as 15 million people. There are also about one million speakers in neighboring Congo. Lingala is another of the Bantu languages.

Congo (Zaire), Congo Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of.

Family: Niger-Congo
Subgroup: Benue-Congo
Branch: Bantu

Writing Sample

Translation

We are pleased to read in the newspapers that many of our friends are pressing for the teaching of European languages in the schools for Blacks. This is an excellent idea. But our friends often forget that impractical ideas often make a man look like a small child. If the child who has, for example, a piece of bread, should see a piece of sugar, he will toss away the bread and take the sugar. It is the same with Lingala, Swahili, Kongo, Luba, etc., which we have not yet thoroughly mastered, but which we are discarding in favor of French, Flemish, and English. What then? We will no longer respect our own languages and can only debase them. Thus the whites look upon us as small children filled with vain desires and they make fun of us.