Kikongo Alphabet

Kikongo is written in the Latin alphabet with 20 letters: A B D E F G I K L M N O P S T U V W Y Z. The five vowels a e i o u keep one sound each, close to Spanish or Italian, and most syllables end in a vowel, though some noun-class nasals form syllables on their own, as in Kongo, nsi (country) or mvula (rain).

The letters c, h, j, q, r and x are not part of the core alphabet; they turn up in names, loanwords and older spellings. That is why the colonial-era forms Congo, Bacongo and Quicongo became Kongo, Bakongo and Kikongo in the language's own spelling. Historians use Kongo with a K for the people, the language and the old kingdom, and keep Congo with a C for the river and the two modern states.

The language's name is built the Bantu way: Kongo is the root, Kikongo is the language, a Mukongo is one person and the Bakongo are the people. The same prefix system runs through the whole vocabulary, so a word's first syllable often tells you what kind of thing it names.

Mb, nz, nk: the letter pairs that make Kikongo look like Kikongo

Kikongo's common alphabet uses plain Latin letters, but many words begin with a nasal and a consonant together. Mb, mp, mf, mv, nd, nt, ns, nz, ng and nk each stand for a single prenasalised sound, said in one beat, as in Mbanza (town, capital), Nzambi (God), Nkisi (a sacred object), Ntotila (king), Mfumu (chief) and Ngoma (drum).

Kikongo is a tonal language, but everyday spelling does not mark tone, so there are no accented letters to look for; dictionaries and linguists add tone marks when they need them. Some writers, especially in Angola and in linguistic work, double a long vowel, as in Kikoongo and Koongo, while most everyday writing in DR Congo uses single vowels.

How to type Kikongo and its quotation marks

Every Kikongo letter is on the keyboards people already use: the French AZERTY keyboard common in DR Congo and the Republic of the Congo, the Portuguese one in Angola, and any phone keyboard. Turn off French or Portuguese autocorrect if it keeps changing Kikongo words.

Texts written in French-speaking Congo often use French guillemets « » for quotations, while English-style curly quotes “ ” are common online. On Windows, type Alt+0171 for « and Alt+0187 for », Alt+0147 for “ and Alt+0148 for ”. On a Mac with a US layout, Option+\ gives « and Option+Shift+\ gives », Option+[ gives “ and Option+Shift+[ gives ”. In HTML, write « and ». Or copy them from this page.

Where Kikongo is spoken

Kikongo is the language of the Bakongo, who live along the lower Congo River and the Atlantic coast: in Kongo Central province of DR Congo (around Matadi and Mbanza-Ngungu), in the south of the Republic of the Congo, and in northern Angola, in Zaire and Uíge provinces and Cabinda. Unicode's CLDR estimates about 1.7 million speakers in DR Congo alone; Angola and Congo-Brazzaville have large Kikongo-speaking communities too. Kikongo is a Bantu language, related to Kimbundu and Umbundu in Angola, Lingala and Luba-Lulua in DR Congo, and more distantly to Swahili.

Do not confuse it with Kituba, also called Kikongo ya leta or Munukutuba: a simpler trade language that grew out of Kikongo and is now a national language of both Congos. When the DR Congo constitution lists Kikongo among the country's four national languages, alongside Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba, it is Kikongo ya leta that is meant in practice. Most Kikongo speakers also use French in DR Congo and the Republic of the Congo, or Portuguese in Angola.

Kikongo words and phrases to copy

Mbote is the everyday hello, and matondo is a common way to say thank you. Malembe means slowly or gently, and malembe malembe is a friendly "take it easy". Nzambi a Mpungu is God Almighty, the name hymns and prayers use, and Kongo dia Ntotila is the Kongo kingdom, whose capital Mbanza Kongo in northern Angola became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017.

A few Kikongo words travelled far. Nguba, the peanut 🥜, is a Kikongo and Kimbundu word that, carried to the American South by enslaved Central Africans, is the probable source of the English word goober. Ngoma 🥁 is the word for drum across much of Bantu-speaking Africa.