ALPHABET

Lingala alphabet

Lingala (Lingála) is a Bantu language mostly spoken in Central Africa. Although, it can be written in various alphabets, Mandombe script being one of them, Lingala is mainly written using the Latin alphabet. The alphabet is spilt into:

• 15 Simple Consonant
• 17 Double consonants or digraphs
• 3 Triple consonants or trigraphs
• 5 simple vowels
• 2 special vowels

A digraph is when we put two letters together to make one sound when we read or speak. A digraph can consist of consonants or vowels. In the same way, a trigraph is when we use three letters to make a single sound. E.g. the combined consonants Gb is often time replaced with Gw. As an example, gbagba or gwagwa means “bridge” in Lingala.

The letters c, h, j, q, r, and x are rare, but present some words borrowed from other languages. In the old spoken Lingala, r was usually replaced by the letter l.

Lingala is a tonal language with four tones, each shown by little accented letters. There is not such a “Lingala alphabet” but the specificities of the language make the writing quite unique.

If you’re curious about how Lingala is written, check out our lingala learning resources page or our article lingala compared to English.