Open Lingala Contemporary Bible (LINOCB)

Overview

The Open Lingala Contemporary Bible, known as Mokanda na Bomoi ("Book of Life"), is a full Bible translation in contemporary Lingala produced by Biblica (International Bible Society). The translation project began in 1992, and a New Testament was published in 2002 (with copyright date reflecting this milestone). [1] Work on the complete Bible continued from 2003, with several interruptions and changes in team composition over the project's nearly 30-year lifespan; over 50 people contributed to the translation. [1] The full Bible was officially launched on August 7, 2021, at the Cathédrale du Centenaire Protestant in Kinshasa, DR Congo, in partnership with the Église du Christ au Congo (ECC), the umbrella organization overseeing evangelical churches in the DRC. [1] [2] Charles Diawaku, Biblica's former Director, organized the launch, with Biblica staff Thomas Amoah (Regional Director for West Africa) and Rose Birenge (Partnerships Director) in attendance. [1] Scripture Union served as the commercial distribution partner. [1] The edition carries copyright dates of 2002 and 2020 and is distributed through Biblica's Open.Bible initiative under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, with text and audio editions covering both the Old and New Testaments. Lingala, a Bantu trade language that developed around 1900, is a statutory language of national identity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and serves as a major lingua franca, spoken by around 20 million people. [1]

Language and People

Lingala (ISO 639-3: lin) is spoken by approximately 2,292,520 people in Southern Democratic Republic of Congo. [Glottolog: ling1263]

Publishing and Organizations

Published by Biblica.

References