- Tshiluba language
language
name=Tshiluba
nativename=
states=Democratic Republic of the Congo
region=Kasai-Occidental andKasai-Oriental provinces
speakers=6,300,000 (1991)
familycolor=Niger-Congo
fam2=Atlantic-Congo
fam3=Volta-Congo
fam4=Benue-Congo
fam5=Bantoid
fam6=Southern
fam7=Narrow Bantu
fam8=Central
fam9=L
fam10=Luba
iso1=|iso2=lua|iso3=luaTshiluba (also called Luba-Kasai and Luba-Lulua) is a Bantu language spoken in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo , where it is anational language .Classification
Tshiluba belongs to the Bantu branch of the
Niger-Congo languages . It is the language of theBaluba people.Geographic distribution
Tshiluba is spoken by about 6.3 million people in the
Kasaï Occidental andKasaï Oriental provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Dialects
There are significant dialect differences between the
East Kasai Region (Luba people ) and theWest 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 apersonal name rather than a difficult word.ources
*MacIntyre, Ben. "Why do Koreans say 'a biscuit would be nice' instead of 'I want a biscuit'?", The Times,
August 21 ,2004 .External links
* [http://www.ciyem.ugent.be/ Online Cilubà - French Dictionary]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lua Ethnologue report on Tshiluba]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm BBC News: Congo word "most untranslatable"]
* [http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Luba PanAfrican L10n page on Luba]
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