Mbeti na ndi Gilima — Gilima (Ngbaka Ma'bo) Scripture Portions (DR Congo)
Overview
Mbeti na ndi Gilima ("The Scripture/Word in Gilima") is the Gospel of Luke in the Gilima language of northwestern DR Congo, published by Beyond Translation under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license and available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4314). The community's self-name is Ngbaka Ma'bo, indicating their place within the broader Ngbaka language cluster of the Ubangi region. This translation is the first scripture in Gilima, produced through Beyond Translation's Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) model. The title Mbeti na ndi ("Word of God" or "scripture" in local Gilima terminology) introduces the community to written scripture in their own language for the first time.
Language and People
Gilima (ISO 639-3: gix; autonym: Ngbaka Ma'bo; also called Ngbaka Mabo) is a Niger-Congo language of the Ubangian branch: Niger-Congo → Ubangian → Ngbaka group. The Ngbaka language complex of northwestern DRC includes several related but distinct languages sharing the "Ngbaka" designation: Ngbaka proper (nga, also called Ngbaka Minagende), Ngbaka Ma'bo/Gilima (gix), and others. The Ubangian branch (also called Ubangic) is one of the major branches of Niger-Congo, represented primarily in the Central African Republic, northern DRC, and the South Sudan/CAR border zone, alongside other well-known languages like Zande (zne), Gbaya (gba), and the contact language Sango (sag).
The Gilima/Ngbaka Ma'bo community inhabits:
- Mongala Province and/or Nord-Ubangi Province or Sud-Ubangi Province, northwestern DR Congo — the Ubangi River basin zone where Beyond Translation is active
- Tropical rainforest and gallery forest terrain of the Congo basin
Estimated speakers: likely in the range of 10,000–50,000 (precise published data for Gilima/Ngbaka Ma'bo specifically is limited; the broader Ngbaka cluster has several hundred thousand speakers combined).
Cultural Context
The Ubangi River region of northwestern DRC is home to a mosaic of Bantu and Ubangian languages, with several Ngbaka varieties among them. The region was part of the pre-colonial influence sphere of the Zande and other Central African peoples, and later experienced intense colonial contact through Belgian Congo. Beyond Translation has established a significant base of CCBT translations in this region, including languages from Mongala, Sud-Ubangi, and Équateur Provinces.
Publishing and Organizations
Published by Beyond Translation (beyondtranslation.org, Arlington, Texas) under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.