Tshiluba language
Tshiluba (also called
Luba-Kasai and
Luba-Lulua) is a
Bantu language spoken in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is a
national language.
Tshiluba belongs to the
Bantu branch of the
Niger-Congo languages.
Tshiluba is spoken by about 6.3 million people in the
Kasaï Occidental and
Kasaï Oriental provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Dialects
There are significant dialect differences between the
East Kasai Region (
Luba people) and the
West Kasai Region (
Bena Lulua people).
The
Bantu word identified in
June 2004 by Today's Translations, a
British translation company, as the most
untranslatable in the world:
ilunga, in the Tshiluba tongue, means "a person ready to forgive any abuse the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time". However, it is more likely to be a
personal name rather than a difficult word.
*MacIntyre, Ben.
Why do Koreans say 'a biscuit would be nice' instead of 'I want a biscuit'?, The Times,
August 21,
2004.
*
Online Cilubà - French Dictionary*
Ethnologue report on Tshiluba*
BBC News: Congo word "most untranslatable"
