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Four other languages, all of them Bantu based, have the status of national language: Kikongo-Kituba, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba. Democratic Republic of the Congo is a Francophone country, where, as of 2024, 55.393 million (50.69%) out of 109.276 million people speak French [ 2 ] and 74% report using French as a lingua franca .
Approximately 242 languages are spoken in the country, of which four have the status of national languages: Kituba (Kikongo), Lingala, Tshiluba, and Swahili (Congo Swahili). Although some limited number of people speak these as first languages, most of the population speak them as a second language, after the native language of their own ethnic ...
These are now parts of the DRC (Kongo Central and Bandundu), the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon. Kikongo is the base for the Creole language Kituba, also called Kikongo de l'État and Kikongo ya Leta (French and Kituba, respectively, for "Kikongo of the state administration" or "Kikongo of the State"). [4]
Mandombe is based on the sacred shapes and , and intended for writing African languages such as Kikongo, as well as the four national languages of the Congo, Kikongo ya leta, Lingala, Tshiluba and Swahili, though it does not have enough vowels to write Lingala fully. It is taught in Kimbanguist church schools in Angola, the Republic of the ...
A trash can in Seattle labeled in four languages: English, Chinese, Vietnamese (written as "ràc" instead of "rác"), and Spanish. Basura also exists as a loanword in Tagalog, spoken in the city. Some of the first European languages to be spoken in the U.S. were English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Swedish.
Congo Swahili differs greatly from Standard Swahili. [4] There is a common saying among Swahili speakers that goes: "Swahili was born in Zanzibar, grew up in Tanzania, fell sick in Kenya, died in Uganda and was buried in Congo", [5] which highlights how speakers of other dialects often find Congo Swahili incomprehensible.
Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: Lingála) is a Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser degree as a trade language or because of emigration in neighbouring Angola or Central African Republic.
The earliest known human settlements in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been dated back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 90,000 years ago.The first real states, such as the Kongo, the Lunda, the Luba and Kuba, appeared south of the equatorial forest on the savannah from the 14th century onwards.