Tshiluba language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tshiluba | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Democratic Republic of the Congo | |
| Region: | Kasai-Occidental and Kasai-Oriental provinces | |
| Total speakers: | 6,300,000 (1991) | |
| Language family: | Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Narrow Bantu Central L Luba Tshiluba |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | lu | |
| ISO 639-2: | lua | |
| ISO 639-3: | lua | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Tshiluba (also called Luba-Kasai and Luba-Lulua) is a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is a national language.
Contents |
[edit] Classification
Tshiluba belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo languages. It is the language of the Baluba people.
[edit] Geographic distribution
Tshiluba is spoken by about 6.3 million people in the Kasaï Occidental and Kasaï Oriental provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
[edit] Dialects
There are significant dialect differences between the East Kasai Region (Luba people) and the West Kasai Region (Bena Lulua people).
[edit] Vocabulary
The Bantu word identified in June 2004 by Today's Translations, a British translation company, as the most untranslatable in the world: ilunga, in the Tshiluba tongue, means "a person ready to forgive any abuse the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time". However, it is more likely to be a personal name rather than a difficult word.
[edit] Sources
- MacIntyre, Ben. Why do Koreans say 'a biscuit would be nice' instead of 'I want a biscuit'?, The Times, August 21, 2004.
[edit] External links
- Online Cilubà - French Dictionary
- Ethnologue report on Tshiluba
- BBC News: Congo word "most untranslatable"
- PanAfrican L10n page on Luba
 |
This Niger-Congo languages-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
