Tshiluba language
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| Tshiluba | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Region: | Kasaļ Occidental province, Kasaļ Oriental province |
| Total speakers: | 6.3 million (1991) |
| Ranking: | See [1] (http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/help/top-100-languages-by-population.html) Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Niger-Congo
Atlantic-Congo |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | lua |
| SIL | LUB |
| Contents |
Classification
Tshiluba belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo languages.
Geographic distribution
Tshiluba is spoken by about 6.3 million people in the Kasaļ Occidental and Kasaļ Oriental provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Dialects
There are significant dialect differences between the East Kasai Region (Baluba people) and the West Kasai Region (Bena Lulua people).
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.
Sources
- MacIntyre, Ben. Why do Koreans say 'a biscuit would be nice' instead of 'I want a biscuit'?, The Times, August 21, 2004.
External links
- Ethnologue report on Tshiluba (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=LUB)
- BBC News: Congo word "most untranslatable" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm)