Loba Lingala! An English guide to the language of Kinshasa BY THOMAS YOCUM ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALBAN LOW First Published in 2014 by Sampson Low Ltd SLB0004 ISBN 978-0-9534712-5-6 BY THOMAS YOCUM ©YoYo Communications Limited, 2014 All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission to reproduce extracts in whole or in part, please email
[email protected] To my friend and teacher, Matthew Kabeya Acknowledgements This book happened by accident. I didn’t imagine that I would be writing it when I first arrived in Kinshasa, nor did I think that I would be putting something like this together during the initial months of study. But as what began as a collection of notes on piles of scrap pieces of A4 gradually became more organised, and I found myself interpreting and explaining various things about Lingala to friends, the project soon started to develop a momentum of its own. Needless to say, none of this would have been even remotely possible without the help, support, humour, patience and wisdom of Professor Matthew Kabeya, or without the technical expertise of Jose Molenge, one of the British Embassy Kinshasa’s resident Lingala authorities. I am deeply indebted to both of them. The book would also not have been possible without the kind support and very excellent contributions of Alban Low. Alban’s illustrations bring the pages alive, conveying a picture of daily life and the nature of Kinshasa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo that are rarely captured.