Lingala Translation

Overview

We are a trusted provider of quality translation services across all African languages – Lingala included.

We pride ourselves on our comprehensive service; everything we do is tailored to your specific requirements and focused on your objectives. Whatever your language requirements, whether Lingala or not, we have the experience, knowledge and insight to become your quality language service provider.

When working with the language you will be drawing upon the teamwork of your Relationship Manager, the Project Management Team and of course your translator(s).

Once we understand your particular text or job, our Project Management Team assign a linguist to your text. Your linguist will be a professional in that they are either qualified in the translation/linguists field and/or come with a profession, such as engineering, training, oil & gas or finance. This guarantees a solid understanding of the mechanics of translation as well as sector specific terminology. They always work into their mother tongue – so for a text from English into Lingala only a native Lingala speaker would carry this out.

For more information, please contact a member of the team who can talk you through your specific project.

Quick Facts

• Alternate names & spellings: Ngala.
• Language ISO code: ln/ lin
• Number of speakers: over 8 million people who speak it as a first and second language.
• Writing system: Latin alphabet
• Spoken in: Mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and also in the Republic of Congo.

About Lingala

The Lingala language is part of the Niger-Congo family and in turn it is a Bantu language. Primarily spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is one of the national languages of the country, and in the Republic of Congo, where it is one of the national languages along with Kituba, the language is spoken also by smaller communities in Angola and in the Central African Republic.

The language is based on Bobangi, spoken by the bangala people, which was the trade language until the European arrived in the 19th century. With the necessity of having a common language, colonists ended up using this language in the most formal situations, being used by the media, the politicians and educators.  The language, called by that moment Bangala, was then renamed as Lingala when the missionaries tried to standardize the language around 1900.

Nowadays there are different Lingala writing systems and all of them use the Latin alphabet.

Lingala dialects

Among the several Lingala dialects, the most important ones are the standard Lingala, the spoken Lingala and the two forms of Kinshasa Lingala and Brazzaville Lingala. The first one is used in formal functions, as in education and media and it is form that used to be spoken by the missionaries. The spoken form of the language is the one use in a daily basis by its speakers.

The Kinshasa and Brazzaville forms are spoken in the capitals of the same name, and both are influenced by French and other Bantu languages, the official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo.