Bibliya Mosantu Likila — Likila Scripture Portions (DR Congo)
Overview
Bibliya Mosantu Likila ("the Holy Bible in Likila") is the Gospel of Luke in the Likila language of Équateur Province, DRC, published by Beyond Translation under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license and available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4320; abbreviation: LIE). This is the first scripture translation into Likila, produced as part of Beyond Translation's DRC Church-Centric Bible Translation initiative. Likila occupies a linguistically important position as one of the substrate languages that influenced the development of Lingala, now one of the four national languages of the DRC and the language of the Congolese military.
Language and People
Likila (ISO 639-3: lie; autonym: Balobo; also called Bolóbo) is a Bantu language: Niger-Congo → Atlantic-Congo → Benue-Congo → Bantoid → Narrow Bantu → Zone C, C.31b (Ngondi-Ngiri subgroup). It is closely related to Lingala's ancestor languages and to neighboring Ngiri River languages including Libinza (liz), Ndobo (ndw), and Ntomba.
The Likila community inhabits the islands and river margins of the Ngiri River system, Équateur Province (specifically Ingende Territory), northwestern DRC — the same ecological zone as Libinza, characterized by Congo River floodplain islands.
Estimated speakers: approximately 18,000–80,000 (range reflects uncertainty in census access to this remote floodplain region).
Cultural Context
The Ngiri River language communities, including Likila, developed distinct speech varieties in the ecological niche of the Congo floodplain islands, where seasonal flooding creates natural boundaries between communities. The linguistic legacy of this zone extends far beyond its population: the Ngiri River languages are among the primary contributors to the lexicon and phonology of Lingala, which emerged as a trade language along the Congo River from the late 19th century onward and is now spoken by ~70 million people.
Publishing and Organizations
Published by Beyond Translation (beyondtranslation.org, Arlington, Texas) under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, as part of their DRC 15-language community translation initiative.