New Language: Lingala

We are overjoyed to announce that there is another new language on bilingual-picturebooks.org. You can now read "Apkètè's Dream” in Lingala!

Lingala is spoken by about 25–30 million native speakers mainly in the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Angola. The translator Ravie told us that his favourite Lingala words are the ones that can be confused with Spanish or Portuguese. For example, there is "Sapato" = "Zapatos" (Spanish) and "Sapatos" (Portuguese); "Mesa" = "Mesa" (Spanish/ Portuguese); or "Makako"/"makakaku" = "macaque"(Portuguese). There are sentences in Lingala that contain more French than Lingala words. For example, the sentence "Déjà na informé yo que ba sujets d'actualité eza obligatoire chaque jour na conseil de rédaction" in Lingala contains only four Lingala words.

Ravie told us that translating into Lingala can be challenging sometimes: "Many foreign words have no translation in Lingala, so they have to be translated descriptively, which is not easy. But it depends on whether the translator is used to a subject or not. And today, Congolese people speak Lingala using up to 50% of French words."

We are happy that Ravie has taken up this challenge and thank him for his support that makes another story available to many more children.