Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo information
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Map showing the distribution of the four national languages in the Congo
Official
French
National
Kituba, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba
Indigenous
More than 200
Signed
American Sign Language (Francophone African Sign Language)
Keyboard layout
French AZERTY
Lingua franca
French, Kikongo ya leta, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba
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Democratic Republic of the Congo portal
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a multilingual country where an estimated total of 242 languages are spoken. Ethnologue lists 215 living languages.[1] The official language, since the colonial period, is French, one of the languages of Belgium. Four other languages, three of them Bantu based, have the status of national language: Kikongo-Kituba, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba.
51% of the total population is francophone[2] and 74% report using French as a lingua franca.[3]
When the country was a Belgian colony, it had already instituted teaching and use of the four national languages in primary schools, making it one of the few African nations to have had literacy in local languages during the European colonial period. French remains the official language in the Congolese government and is spoken by half of the population.
^Languages of Democratic Republic of the Congo, ethnologue.com
^La langue française dans le monde, Éditions Gallimard, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
^Target study: French the most spoken language in DRC, far ahead of Lingala
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