Lingala | |
---|---|
Ngala | |
Lingála | |
Native to | Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo |
Region | Congo River |
Speakers | L1: 21 million (2021)[1] L2: 20 million (2021)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
Dialects | |
African Reference Alphabet (Latin), Mandombe script | |
Official status | |
Official language in |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | ln |
ISO 639-2 | lin |
ISO 639-3 | lin |
Glottolog | ling1269 |
C30B [2] | |
Linguasphere | 99-AUI-f |
![]() Geographic distribution of Lingala speakers, showing regions of native speakers (dark green) and regions where Lingala is spoken by a minority. (light green) | |
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 in Angola, the Central African Republic, Kenya and southern South Sudan. Lingala has 20 million native speakers and about another 20 million second-language speakers, for an approximate total of 40 million speakers.[1]