| Lingala Language |
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| bantu languages | |
| vowel harmony languages | |
| languages of the democratic republic of the congo | |
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| tonal languages | |
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Lingala is a Bantu Language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic Of The Congo (Congo- Kinshasa ) and a large part of the Republic Of The Congo (Congo- Brazzaville ), as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic . It has over 10 million speakers. It is classed ''C.36D'' under the Guthrie System for classifying Bantu Languages and ''C.40'' under the SIL system. HISTORY The origins of Lingala lie in Bobangi , a language that was spoken along the Congo River between Lisala and Kinshasa . Bobangi functioned as a regional trade language before the genesis of Congo Free State . In the last two decades of the 19th century, after King Leopold II Of Belgium stimulated the exploration and occupation of the area, Bobangi came into wider use. The language was learned and influenced by intermediaries and interpreters of the Westerners, brought to the area from other parts of central and east Africa (e.g. ( Zanzibar , Comoros and the Tanganyika n inland). The colonial administration, in need of a common language for the region, started to use the language for missionary and administrative purposes, calling it '' Bangala '' to set it apart from the old Bobangi. Around the turn of the century, CICM missionaries started a project to 'purify' the language, in order to make it 'pure Bantu' again. Meeuwis (1998:7) writes the following: {Link without Title} issionaries such as the Protestant W. Stapleton and later, and more influentially, E. De Boeck himself judged that the grammar and lexicon of this language were too poor for it to function properly as a medium of education, evangelization, and other types of vertical communication with the Africans in the northwestern and central-western parts of the colony (..). They set out to 'correct' and 'expand' the language by drawing on lexical and grammatical elements from surrounding vernacular languages. In the process of this 'purification', the term Bangala was replaced with ''Lingala'', borrowing a prefix from one of the surrounding languages. The term first appears in a written form in a publication by the C.I.C.M. missionary Egide De Boeck ( 1903 ). Lingala's vocabulary has borrowed much (míliki), or Book (búku). Congolese rebels now use the cryptic forms of the language to pass messages undecipherable by Western intelligence agencies. VARIATIONS The Lingala language can be divided in several dialects or variations. The major variations are considered to be Standard Lingala, Spoken Lingala, Kinshasa Lingala and Brazzaville Lingala. Standard Lingala (called ''lingala littéraire'' or ''lingala classique'' in French) is mostly used in educational and news broadcastings on radio or television, in religious services in the catholic church and is the language taught as a subject at all educational levels. Standard Lingala is historically associated with the work of the Catholic Church and missionaries. It has a seven-vowel system e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ, u with an obligatory tense-lax Vowel Harmony . It also has a full range of morphological noun prefixes with mandatory grammatical agreement system with subject-verb, or noun-modifier for each of class. Standard Lingala is largely used in formal functions. Spoken Lingala (called ''lingala parlé'' in French) is the variation mostly used in the day to day lives of Lingalaphones. It has a full morphological noun prefix system but the agreement system is more lax that the standard variation, i.e. noun-modifier agreement is reduced to two classes. Regarding phonology, there is also a seven-vowel system but the vowel harmony is not mandatory. This variation of Lingala is historically associated with the Protestant missionaries' work. Spoken Lingala is largely used in informal functions, a majority of Lingala songs use Spoken Lingala over the other variations. Kinshasa Lingala and Brazzaville Lingala are the dialects from the capitals of both Congos. They are both heavily influenced by other Bantu languages as well as French (the official language of both countries). They both have lots of borrowed words from those languages, as well as a simplified phonology and grammar. SOUNDS Vowels Vowel harmony Lingala words show vowel harmony to some extent. The close-mid vowels /e/ and /o/ normally do not mix with the open-mid vowels and in words. For example, the words ' 'fishhook' and ''ndobo'' 'mouse trap' are found, but not ' or ''''. Vowel shift The Lingala spoken in Kinshasa shows a vowel shift from to leading to the absence of the phoneme in favor of /o/, the same occurs with and [e , leading to just /e/. So in Kinshasa, a native speaker will say compared to a more traditional pronunciation . Consonants Prenasalized consonants The Prenasalized Stop s formed with a nasal followed by a voiceless plosive are Allophonic to the voiceless plosives alone in some variations of Lingala.
The prenasalized voiced occlusives, /ᵐb/, /ⁿd/, /ᵑɡ/, /ⁿz/ do not vary. Tones Lingala being a Tonal Language , tone is a distinguishing feature in Minimal Pair s, e.g.: ''moto'' (human being) and ''motó'' (head), or kokoma (to write) and kokóma (to arrive). There are two tones possible, the normal one is low and the second one is high. Tonal morphology Tense Morphemes carry tones.
GRAMMAR See Also: Lingala grammar Noun class system Like all Bantu Languages , Lingala has a Noun Class system in which nouns are classified according to the Prefix es they bear and according the prefixes they trigger in sentences. The table below shows the noun classes of Lingala, ordered according to the numbering system that is widely used in descriptions of Bantu languages. Individual classes pair up with each other to form singular/plural pairs, sometimes called 'genders'. There are seven genders in total. The singular classes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 take their plural forms from classes 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, respectively. Additionally, many household items found in class 9 take a class 2 prefix (''ba'') in the plural: ''lutu'' > ''balutu'' 'spoon', ''mesa'' > ''bamesa'' 'table', ''sani'' > ''basani'' 'plate'. Words in class 11 usually take a class 10 plural. Most words from class 14 (abstract nouns) do not have a plural counterpart. Class 9 and 10 have a nasal prefix, which Assimilates to the following consonant. Thus, the prefix shows up as 'n' on words that start with ''t'' or ''d'', e.g. ''ntaba'' 'sheep', but as 'm' on words that start with ''b'' or ''p'' (e.g. ''mbisi'' 'fish'). There is also a prefixless class 9a and 10a, exemplified by ''sánzá'' > ''sánzá'' 'moon(s) or month(s)'. Possible ambiguities are solved by the context. Noun class prefixes do not show up only on the noun itself, but serve as markers throughout the whole sentence. In the sentences below, the class prefixes are underlined. (There is a special verbal form 'a' of the prefix for class 1 nouns.)
Only to a certain extent, noun class allocation is Semantically governed. Classes 1/2, as in all Bantu languages, mainly contain words for human beings; similarly, classes 9/10 contain many words for animals. In other classes, semantical regularities are mostly absent or are obscured by many exceptions. Verb inflections and morphology Verbal extensions There are 4 morphemes modifying verbs, they are added to some verb root in the following order : # Reversive (-ol-) #: e.g.: kozinga ''to wrap'' and kozingola ''to develop'' # Causative (-is-) #: e.g. : koyéba ''to know'' and koyébisa ''to inform'' # Passive (-am-) #: e.g. : koboma ''to kill'' and kobomama ''to be killed'' # Applicative (-el-) #: e.g. : kobíka ''to heal (self), to save (self)'' and kobíkela ''to heal (someone else), to save (someone)'' # Reciprocal or stationary (-an-, sometimes -en-) #: e.g. : kokúta ''to find'' and kokútana ''to meet'' Tense inflections The first tone segment affects the subject part of the verb, the second tone segment attaches to the semantic morpheme attached to the root of the verb.
WRITING SYSTEM The Lingala language has several different writing systems, being a spoken language more than a written language. Most of those writing systems are ad hoc. Due to the low literacy of Lingala speakers in written Lingala (in the Congo-Brazzaville literacy rate in Lingala as first language is between 10% to 30%), its popular orthograpy is very flexible and varies from one Congo to the other. Some orthographies are heavily influenced by the French language orthography; including double S, "ss", to transcribe (in Congo-Brazzaville); "ou" for [u (in Congo-Brazzaville); I with umlaut, "aï", to transcribe or ; E with acute accent, "é", to transcribe "e" to transcribe , O with acute accent, ó, to transcribe or sometimes [o in opposition to o transcribing or ; I or Y can both transcribe [j . The allophones are also found as alternating forms in the popular orthography; "sango" is an alternative to ''nsango'' (information); "nyonso", "nyoso", "nionso", "nioso" are all transcriptions of ''''. In 1976 the ''Société Zaïroise des Linguistes'' ( Zairian Linguists Society) adopted a writing system for Lingala, using the open e and the open o to write the vowels and , and sporadic usage of accents to mark tone. Also, the limitations of input methods, prevents Lingala writers to easily use the and , and the accents. For example, it is almost impossible to type Lingala according to that convention with a common English or French keyboard. The convention of 1976 reduced the alternative orthography of characters, but did not enforce tone marking. The lack of consistent accentuation is lessened by the disambiguation due to context. The popular orthographies seem to be a step ahead of any academic based orthography. Many Lingala books, papers, even the translation of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights and more recently, internet forums, newsletters, and major websites, such as Google's Lingala, do not use Lingala specific characters (ɛ and ɔ). Tone marking is in most literary works. Alphabet The Lingala language has 34 Letter s and Digraph s. The digrams each have a specific order in the alphabet, for example "mza" will be expected to be ordered before "mba", because the digram "mb" follows the letter "m". The letters "r" and "h" are rare but present in borrowed words. The accents indicate the tones :
Sample The Lord's Prayer ::Tatá wa bísó, ozala o likoló, ::bato bakúmisa Nkómbó ya , ::bandima bokonzi bwa , mpo elingo , ::basálá yangó o nsé, ::lokóla bakosalaka o likoló ::Pésa bísó biléi bya , ::límbisa mabé ma bísó, ::lokóla bísó tokolimbisaka baníngá. ::Sálisa bísó tondima masɛ́nginyá tê, ::mpe bíkisa bísó o mabé. SEE ALSO BIBLIOGRAPHY
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