Lingala (C30B)

Abstract Lingala has a total of approximately 45 million native speakers and lingua franca users combined. It is spoken in the western and northern Democratic Republic of Congo (including in Kinshasa) and in the central and northern Republic of Congo (including in Brazzaville). It also continues to strengthen its position as a secondary lingua franca in those parts of the DRC (and Angola) where Kikongo, Swahili, and Tshiluba are the dominant lingua francas. In addition, it is the main medium of communication and emblem of Congolese identity among the Central African diaspora in the Global North. This chapter provides a succinct overview of Lingala’s origins as a relatively recent language that emerged out of the restructuration (pidginisation) of Bobangi in the late 19th Century, as well as of its present-day varieties, and its main phonological, tonological, and grammatical features. Of particular note are its highly reduced system of agreement in the noun phrase, a result of its origins, and, in contrast, a relatively complex TA-system in the verbal paradigm, which Lingala regained and developed later. Aspects of Lingala’s syntax, such as constituent order and the formation of single clauses and complex sentences, are also briefly addressed.