The official language of the Republic of Congo is French. Other languages are mainly Bantu languages, and the two national languages in the country are Kituba and Lingala (13%), followed by Mboshi, Bateke (17.3%), and more than forty other languages, including Pygmy languages (1.4%), which are not Bantu languages.
French is spoken by 30% of the Congolese population. According to a study by Omar Massoumou, 88% of those in Brazzaville aged over 15 can write simple phrases in French.
According to Laval University, because of civil wars that rocked the country, French became a "haven language" for various armed factions. For example, speakers who are incompetent in Kituba (especially those in the south), Kikongo and Lingala (especially those in the north) prefer to speak French for security reasons. For fear of revealing their ethnicity, the Congolese go to French, which helps preserve their anonymity. (See also: African French)
Kituba (or Munukutuba) is a simplified Kikongo creole, understandable by the users of different dialects of Kikongo. This language is used by 50.35% of the Congolese population who live along the Congo-Océan railway line which connects Brazzaville to Pointe-Noire in the south of the country.
Lingala, the river language, is the language of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, and is spoken mainly in the north and east of the country. This is the language which has grown most quickly in the past few years in the Congo.
Batekes form 18% of the population and are mostly found in the Plateaux Department, in the Cuvette-Ouest (where they are known as Mbéti and Tégué), Niari (where they are known as Nzabi), Bouenza and the Pool region.
Lari is a mixture of various idioms of Kongo and Téké, and is the language mostly spoken in the Pool region.
The dominant sign language is ASL from Nigeria, influenced by local gestures and conventions.
Famous quotes containing the words languages and/or republic:
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)