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| Kituba | |
|---|---|
| Kikongo ya leta | |
| Monokutuba, Munukutuba, Kituba (mkw) Kikongo ya leta (ktu) | |
| Speakers | L1: 17,000,000 million (2024)[1] L2: 1,200,000 |
| Latin,Mandombe | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | National language and unofficial language: Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:mkw – Kituba (RC)ktu – Kituba (DRC) |
| Glottolog | kitu1246 DRCkitu1245 RC |
H10A,B[2] | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Kituba (endonyms:Kituba,Kikongo ya leta) is a widely usedlingua franca inCentral Africa. It is acreole language[3] based onKikongo, aBantu language. It is a national language inRepublic of the Congo andDemocratic Republic of the Congo.
Kituba is known by many names among its speakers. In academic circles the language is calledKikongo-Kituba.
In theRepublic of the Congo it is calledMunukutuba, a phrase which means literally "I say",[4] and is used in the Republic's 1992 constitution.[5] The latter (Kituba) means "way of speaking"[6]: 213 and is used in the 2015 constitution.[7]
In theDemocratic Republic of the Congo it is calledKikongo ya leta ("the state's Kikongo"[4] or "Government Kikongo"[8]), orKikongo de l'État, shortened toKileta.[6]: 212 Confusingly, it is also calledKikongo, especially in areas that lackKongo (Kikongo) speakers,[8] namely the Kwango and Kwilu Provinces. The constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo lists "Kikongo" as one of the national languages.[9][10] The Kikongo spoken alongside Lingala in urban centres is in fact Kituba.[11][6]: 30
There are also other historical names such asKibula-matadi (literally "the stone-breaker's speech"),[4][6]: 212 (literally "be not", "it isn't so"),[4][6]: 213 Kikwango,[6]: 215 ,Bastard kikongo[12][13] andKizabave[14] (literally "do not know"), but they have largely fallen out of use.
The majority of Kituba speakers live in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is spoken as the primary lingua franca in the provinces ofKongo Central,Kwango andKwilu and to a lesser extent inKinshasa,Mai-Ndombe andKasai.
Kituba is spoken in the southern of the Republic of Congo, in regions ofKouilou,Pointe-Noire,Niari,Bouenza,Lékoumou and in the capitalBrazzaville.Lingala is more popular in the north.
Kituba is also spoken in the northern part of Angola, since modern nations cut across the lines of tribal areas and ancient kingdoms, and northern Angola borders the Kwango Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo which is a strong Kituba-speaking area.[18]
Although mutually intelligible, there are differences, mainly in vocabulary, between the eastern and western areas of The Democratic Republic of Congo, and still more between the Kituba spoken there and that spoken in Congo-Brazzaville (Republic of Congo).[18]
Kituba is a national language in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In practice the termnational language means that it is a language of regional administration, elementary education, and business.
A national language is also one that is used for public and mass communication. National public radios and televisions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Republic of Congo use Kituba as one of their main languages for evening news.[19][20][21][22][23]
There are several theories on how Kituba came into being. One theory claims that it had already evolved at the time of theKongo Kingdom as a simplified interdialectal trade language, which the European colonists subsequently took into use for regional administration. Another theory claims that a simplified trade language called Kifyoti was developed at the Portuguese coastal trading 18post and it was later spread upstream by the Christian missionaries to the region between the Kwango and the Kasai rivers where it evolved further (hence the name Kikwango). Yet another theory emphasizes the construction of theMatadi-Kinshasa railroad at the end of the 1800s, which involved forced labour fromWest Africa, lower Congo, and the neighbouringBandundu region. The workers had diverse linguistic backgrounds which gave birth to a grammatically simplified language.
Harold W. Fehdereau, a linguist and missionary, carried out a major linguistic survey of Kituba-speaking areas under the joint auspices of the American Bible Society and the American Mennonite Brethren Mission. He published his work in a Kituba-French-English dictionary in 1969. He traced the development of Kituba back to the 1800s or earlier, necessitated by the inter-tribal needs of the Congolese themselves, and later, their relationship with slave traders. Then in the early 1900s, the Belgian and French colonization of the area brought further need for a convenient language of communication with the Congolese. He admits that we do not have a very complete picture of the development of Kituba before the 1930s, when it came into wide use by Christian missionaries. He notes that many today have grown up knowing Kituba as their mother tongue, and at the same time, it has reached some complexity of grammar unusual to pidgin languages. He notes that there is an increasing tendency, particularly in the western Kituba-speaking region, to borrow words from French, adding Kituba prefixes and suffixes for everyday usage.[24]
Regardless of the genesis, Kituba established itself in the large towns that were found during the colonial period between 1885 and 1960. Kituba is spoken as the primary language in the large Bakongo cities ofMoanda,Boma,Matadi,Pointe-Noire,Dolisie,Nkayi, andBrazzaville and also in large non-Bakongo cities ofBandundu,Kikwit, andIlebo. It is the main language spoken throughout the modern provinces of Kwango and Kasai. A dialect called 'Monokutuba' is spoken in Congo-Brazzaville (Republic of Congo).[25]
The first portions of the Bible were published in 1934, followed by the New Testament in 1950. A revision was published in 1957. The complete Bible was published in 1982, all by the Bible Society of Congo.[26][27][28]
TheOffice of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has published a translation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Kituba.[29]
What is generally referred to asKikongo actually refers to a cluster of related languages, rather than a single language.
— Koen Bostoen and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, In: Une archéologie des provinces septentrionales du royaume Kongo, 2018
Some examples of differences betweenKikongo (Kisikongo, Kizombo, Kisolongo, Iwoyo, Kiyombe, Kisingombe, Kintandu, Kimanianga, Kindibu, Civili, Tsiladi (Lari), etc.) and Kituba (or Kikongo ya leta, Munukutuba, Monokutuba):[30][31][32]
1. Conjugation: InKikongo, the conjugation of a tense to different persons is done by changing verbal prefixes, unlike in Kituba:
Example: verb "to be" conjugated in the present in Kikongo and Kituba:
| English | Kikongo (Civili) | Kikongo (Cibinda / Tchibinda) | Kituba (or Kikongo ya leta) |
|---|---|---|---|
| To Be | or | orKuvanda | |
| I am | I ke (orI kele) | Nkele | Munu / MonoKe (orKele) |
| You are | Ke (orKele) | Kele | NgeKe (orKele) |
| He / She is | Ke (orKele) | Kele | YandiKe (orKele) |
| We are | Tu ke (orTu kele) | Tukele | BetoKe (orKele) |
| You are | Lu ke (orLu kele) | Lukele | BenoKe (orKele) |
| They are | Ba ke (orBa kele)/Be ke (orBe kele) | Bakele | Bau / BoKe (orKele) |
2. Negative form
| Kikongo | Kituba (or Kikongo ya leta) |
|---|---|
| K'usumbidi KO /Kusumbidi KO : You didnot buy | Yandi ke na nsoni VÉ : He / She hasno shame |
| KA tusingasala KO : We willnot work | Munu / Mu ke mona nge VÉ : I cannot see you |
| Luzingu lu kéli KUVÉ tok’ luboti, si sènde vandi si kéli : Life is only made of roses, but also of thorns Etc. | Beto ke diaVÉ : We donot eat Yandi vuandaka kusalaVÉ : He / She wasnot used to working |
3. The way to say "My name is" is different :
| My name is inKikongo | My name is in Kituba (or Kikongo ya leta) |
|---|---|
| Nkumbu ame / Nkumbu ami / Nkumbu ani / Dizina diame (or zina diame) / Dizina diami (or zina diami) / Dizina diani (or zina diani) / Lizina liami, etc. | Zina na mono kele / Nkumbu ya mono kele / Nkumbu ya munu kele |
4. Noun classes : noun prefixes are not completely the same (cf. theKikongo and Kituba grammars)
Kituba has five vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/. They are very similar to the vowels ofSpanish. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
| Labial | Alveolar/ Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||||||
| Plosive | plain | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||
| prenasal. | ᵐp | ᵐb | ⁿt | ⁿd | ᵑk | ᵑg | |||||
| Fricative | plain | f | v | s | z | (h) | |||||
| prenasal. | ᶬf | ᶬv | ⁿs | ⁿz | |||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||||||
Kituba has subject and object pronouns. The object pronouns are used in place of subject pronouns when the subject is being emphasized.
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Object | Subject | Object | |
| 1st person | mu | munu, mono | beto | beto |
| 2nd person | nge | nge | beno | beno |
| 3rd person | yá | yandi | ba | bau |
| I love you in kituba |
|---|
| Mu (or Munu, Mono) zola nge / Munu me zola nge / Mu me zola nge / Me zola nge / Mono (or Mu, Munu) ke zola nge |
Kituba has kept by and large the noun classes of ethnic Kikongo with some modifications. The classes 9 and 11 have in effect merged with the singular class with zero prefix, and their plural is formed with generic plural class prefixba-.
| Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class | Prefix | Example | Class | Prefix | Example |
| 0 | – | mama ('mother) | 2 | ba- | bamama (mothers) |
| 1 | mu- | muntu (person) | 2 | ba- | bantu (people) |
| 3 | mu- | mulangi (bottle) | 4 | mi- | milangi (bottles) |
| 5 | di- | dinkondo (banana) | 6 | ma- | mankondo (bananas) |
| 7 | ki- | kima (thing) | 8 | bi- | bima (things) |
| 9 | n-/m- | nkosi (lion) | 2+9 | ba-n- | bankosi (lions) |
| 11 | lu- | ludimi (tongue) | 2+11 | ba-lu- | baludimi (tongues) |
| 12 | ka- | kakima (trifle) | 13 | tu- | tubima (trifles) |
| 14 | bu | bumbote (goodness) | |||
| 15 | ku- | kubanza (to think, thinking) | |||
Kituba has a well-developed verbal system involvinggrammatical tense andaspect. Most verb forms have long and short versions. The long forms are used in formal written communication whereas the short forms have developed for spoken communication.
The irregular conjugation of the verb or (to be) is presented in the table below. It is the only irregular verb in Kituba.
| Tense | Long form | Short form | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present and immediate future | kele | ke | Yau kele nkosi. | It is a lion. |
| Future | kele/ata kuv(u)anda | ke/ta v(u)anda | Mu ta vuanda tata. | I will be a father. |
| Present progressive | kele kuv(u)andaka | ke v(u)andaka | Nge ke vuandaka zoba. | You are being stupid. |
| Future progressive | ata kuv(u)andaka | ta v(u)andaka | Beno ta vuandaka ya kukuela. | You will be married. |
| Past | v(u)anda | Yandi vuanda kuna. | He was there. | |
| Past progressive | v(u)andaka | Beto vuandaka banduku. | We used to be friends. | |
| Past perfect | mene kuv(u)anda | me v(u)anda | Yandi me vuanda na Matadi. | He was in Matadi. |
| Past perfect progressive | mene kuv(u)andaka | me v(u)andaka | Yandi me vuandaka mulongi. | She has been a teacher. |
All other verbs are conjugated with the help of auxiliary verbs. The conjugation of the verb (to do) is presented in the table below.
| Tense | Long form | Short form | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present and immediate future | kele kusala | ke sala | Yandi ke sala. | He works. / He will work. |
| Present progressive | kele kusalaka | ke salaka | Yandi ke salaka. | He is working. |
| Past | salaka | salaka | Yandi salaka. | He worked. |
| Immediate past | mene sala | me sala | Yandi me sala. | He has worked. |
| Immediate past progressive | mene salaka | me salaka | Yandi me salaka. | He has been working. |
| Past progressive | vuandaka kusala | va sala | Yandi vuandaka kusala. | He used to work. |
| Narrative | sala | sala | ||
| Future | ata sala | ta sala | Yandi ta sala. | He will work. |
| Future progressive | ata salaka | ta salaka | Yandi ta salaka. | He will be working. |
The suffix indicatingvoice is adding after the verb root and before the suffix indicating tense.
The most common forms are "ila", indicating action to or toward someone, and "ana", indicating mutual or reciprocal action:
Kutanga "to read", Tangila "read to", Tangilaka "read to" (past)
Sadisa "to help", Sadisana "help one another", Sadisanaka "helped one another (past)[33]
A Kituba-English-French dictionary compiled by linguist Harold W. Fehderau, Ph.D., was published in 1969. It is not widely available.[34]
The bulk of Kituba words come fromKikongo. Other Bantu languages have influenced it as well, includingKiyaka,Kimbala,Kisongo,Kiyansi,Lingala, andSwahili. In addition, many words have been borrowed fromFrench,Portuguese, andEnglish.[35] These include:
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights translates to:
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In 2018, a book (Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: Mbandu ya luzingu by Protais Yumbi) written in Kikongo ya Leta was nominated for theGrand Prix of Literary Associations.[36][37] A hymnbook,Bankunga ya Kintwadi (Songs of Fellowship) was published in 1988 by the Mennonite Brethren Mission. It is widely used by numerous Protestant denominations.[38]Almost a hundred Kituba-language books and articles have been published by Every Child Ministries' Mwinda Project. These include articles on Christian education, Bible lessons for children and youth, teacher training, health, and a variety of other topics. These are available on-line and at bookstores and libraries within the Democratic Republic of Congo.[39]
Mais leKikongo dont il est question ici est leKituba oumunukutuba... érigé en langue nationale par les différentes constitutions de la R.D.C.[But the Kikongo in question here is theKituba ormunukutuba... made into a national language by the various constitutions of the DRC.]
| National | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
