kikongo

Kikongo is a Bantu language spoken by the Bakongo people of the Congo Basin in Central Africa. It belongs to the Kongo language group within the Niger-Congo family and forms a dialect continuum with related Kongo varieties across the region. Geographically, Kikongo is spoken in northern Angola (including Cabinda), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and to a lesser extent in Gabon. Estimates of the number of speakers are in the low millions.

The language comprises several dialects, which are generally mutually intelligible and form a single linguistic repertoire used by the Bakongo and neighboring communities. The standard writing system is based on the Latin alphabet, with orthographies developed by linguists and missionaries; there is a growing corpus of literature, educational materials, and media in Kikongo.

Linguistically, Kikongo exhibits common Bantu features such as a noun class system and prefixes that mark concord and verb morphology. It has been influenced by contact with Portuguese in Angola and with French and other languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is reflected in vocabulary in some varieties.

In official contexts, Kikongo is recognized as a national language in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, and it is used in education, radio, and local administration to varying extents. The language plays a central role in Bakongo cultural identity and oral tradition, and there are ongoing efforts to document and standardize its varieties for literacy and media.