Ilunga

Ilunga

Ilunga is a relatively common personal name in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In June 2004, it was reported as being the world's most difficult word to translate. This claim was made by a British translation company, Today Translations, based on its survey of 1,000 linguists. According to Jurga Zilinskiene (head of Today Translations), the difficulty in translating the words picked out by the survey is not finding the meaning of these words, but rather conveying their cultural connotations and overtones.

Ilunga, described as a word from the Bantu language of Tshiluba, was said to mean "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time". However, there is no independent evidence that the word actually means what the translation company claims. When asked for confirmation by one reporter, representatives of the Congo government recognized the word only as a personal name. Furthermore, the translation company failed to respond to inquiries regarding the survey, made by the same reporter.

Ilunga as a family name

Ilunga is a family name placed before the given name. There are many famous African and African-descended people named Ilunga. For example:

* Kalala Ilunga, legendary founder of the Luba ethnic group of Democratic Republic of Congo
* Bendele Ilunga, boxer, Belgium
* Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, basketball, Congo, joined Dallas Mavericks in July 2004
* Dorah Ilunga Kabulu, politician, Belgium
* Enock Ilunga, painter, Zambia
* Ferousi Ilunga, boxer, Congo
* Ilunga A. Kalonzo Ilunga, politician, Congo
* Ilunga Katele, traditional culture hero, royal ancestor of the Chokwe people
* Martin-Léonard Bakole wa Ilunga (deceased), Catholic archbishop, Congo
* Gen. Ilunga Shamanga (deceased), Congo, Army General, last interior minister of Mobutu's regime, and later prominent member of the Congolese Rally for Democracy rebel group.
* Ilunga Mwepu
* Kasongo Ilunga Congolese politician

Tshiluba is a language spoken in the southeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

ources

* MacIntyre, Ben. "Why do Koreans say "a biscuit would be nice" instead of "I want a biscuit"?", The Times, August 21, 2004.

ee also

* Words hardest to translate

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm BBC News: Congo word "most untranslatable"]
* [http://www.todaytranslations.com Today Translations] -- with the [http://www.todaytranslations.com/index.asp?PageKind=NewsItem&RefID=37203181&PageNumber=1 survey result]


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