Learn Kikongo online

Kikongo, also called Koongo, is not a single language but a cluster of about 40 closely related varieties. This bantu language is the anchor of identity for the people of the Bakongo and carries the heritage of one of the most powerful empires of central Africa.

Today speak 7 to 10 million People Kikongo as a native language. The language is recognized as a national language in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo and is also spoken in North-West Angola and Gabon. Kikongo belongs to the Niger-Kongo language family and is therefore related to other African languages such as Wolof, Ewe, Kinyarwanda and Xhosa. 

Anyone who wants to learn Kikongo is immersed in a language with royal history. At Sankofa Lingua Academy we offer Kikongo courses for each level.

Long before Europeans knew Africa at all, the Bakongo spoke already Kikongo. The Language was created around 950 BC, almost a thousand years before the Roman Empire reached its peak. The Bakongo people settled on the river Nzadi, which we know today as the Congo River and built up their civilization there.
The Congo kingdomon Kikongo Congo dya Ntotila called, was around 1390 founded. The capital Mbanza Congo was located in today's Angola and was the political and religious heart of a powerful empire. The Bakongo traded, controlled metal processing and built up a complex state.

1483 portuguese sailors Diogo Cão the coast and King Nzinga a Nkuwu converted to Catholicism in 1491. His son Afonso I continued the connection and sent his own son Henrique to Rome, where he was consecrated as the first black African bishop in 1518. In this time Kikongo the first Bantu languageewritten down with Latin characters was.

However, the partnership with Portugal broke up with European hunger for slaves, which social structure of the empire destabilized. The Battle of Mbwila in 1665 cost King António I life and crashed the Empire in decades of civil war.
The last act came in 1884. At the Berlin Conference, European powers divided Africa among themselves without asking a single African. The Area of the Bakongo was cut: Some went to Belgium, one to France, one to Portugal. Families were separated, villages were broken. 

Year	Date	Meaning for Kikongo
950 BC.	Kikongo language is created	First development as an independent Bantu language
approx. 1390	Establishment of the Kingdom of Congo	Kikongo becomes language of a powerful empire
1483	Portugiesen reach the coast	Start of European contact
1518	Henrique becomes Bishop in Rome	Kikongo is written for the first time in Latin
from 1500	Slave trade destabilizes the kingdom	Millions of speakers are dragged to America
1665	Battle of Mbwila	King drops the weakened kingdom
1884–1885	Berlin Conference	Bakongo area is divided between Belgium, France and Portugal

Who wants to learn Kikongo quickly meets a surprising question: what Kikongo actually? Because behind the name lies not a single language, but a family from around 40 closely related Bantu varieties. What once began as a language of kings and priests in the Kingdom of Congo has evolved over centuries into a complex language cluster.

Today we distinguish two main groups: On the one hand traditional kikongo, i.e. the regional languages that are passed on in certain areas as a native language from generation to generation. On the other hand, Kituba stands the creole form. 

Group	Examples	Characteristics
Traditional Kikongo	Kisikongo, Kiyombe, Kiladi	Regional languages, are passed on as a native language
Creole Kikongo	Kituba /Kikongo ya Leta/ Munukutuba	Simplified traffic language, was created in the 19th century

Unlike later simplified forms, varieties such as  Koongo, Laari, Kisikongo, Kiyombe or Vili naturally developed and passed on from generation to generation as a native language. 

Kisikongo was the language of the royal court in Mbanza Congo and became the basis of the first Kikongo Bible. Laari still dominates the political center of the Republic of Congo around Brazzaville. Kiyombe is inseparably connected to the famous wood carvings of the Mayombe forest region. And Vili tells about the centuries-old coastal trade on the Atlantic to Gabon. The Varieties are often understandable among themselves. The differences are mainly in debate and vocabulary, and the basic structure remains the same.

Between 1891 and 1898 the belgian colonial rulers a railway line from Matadi to Kinshasa. Since the local Bakongo resisted forced labour, the Belgian Workers from the East of Congo and West Africa. Thousands of people who do not understand each other suddenly had to work together and needed a common language.

Kikongo was written early, earlier than most African languages. When European missionaries came to the Kingdom of Congo in the 17th century, they began to document the language. In 1624, missionary Mateus Cardoso published the first religious textbook in a bantu language at all. Um.. In 1652 followed the Vocabularium Congense, a dictionary with about 10,000 words.