Everything about Kikongo totally explained
Kikongo or
Kongo is the
Bantu language spoken by the
Bakongo and
Bandundu people living in the tropical forests of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, the
Republic of the Congo and
Angola. It is a
tonal language and formed the base for
Kituba, a Bantu creole and
lingua franca throughout much of west central
Africa. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from the region and sold as slaves in
the Americas. For this reason, while Kongo still is spoken in the above-mentioned countries, creolized forms of the language are found in ritual speech of African-derived religions in
Brazil,
Jamaica and
Cuba, and it's one of the sources of the
Gullah people's language and the
Palenquero creole in
Colombia. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo, with perhaps two million more who use it as a
second language.
It is also the base for a
creole used throughout the region:
Kituba also called
Kikongo de L'état or
Kikongo ya Leta ("Kongo of the state" in
French or Kongo),
Kituba and
Monokituba (also
Munukituba). The constitution of the Republic of the Congo uses the name
Kitubà, and the one of the Democratic Republic of the Congo uses the term
Kikongo, even if Kituba is used in the administration.
Writing
- While the complete Christian Bible was first published in Kongo in 1905, Kongo was the earliest Bantu language which was committed to writing in Latin characters and had the earliest dictionary of any Bantu language. A catechism was produced under the authority of Diogo Gomes, a Jesuit born in Kongo of Portuguese parents in 1557, but no version of it exists today. In 1624 Mateus Cardoso, another Portuguese Jesuit edited and published a Kongo translation of the Portuguese catechism of Marcos Jorge. The preface informs us that the translation was done by Kongo teachers from São Salvador (modern Mbanza Kongo) and was probably partially the work of Félix do Espírito Santo (also a Kongo). The dictionary was written in about 1648 for the use of Capuchin missionaries and the principal author was Manuel Reboredo, a secular priest from Kongo (who became a Capuchin as Francisco de São Salvador). In the back of this dictionary is found a sermon of two pages written only in Kongo. The dictionary has some 10,000 words.
English words of Kongo origin
The Southern American English word "goober", meaning peanut, comes from Kongo "nguba".(External Link
)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Kikongo'.
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