The Alphabet and Phonemes (Sounds)

The alphabet in Lingala contains many of the letters used in English, with a couple of additions. The sounds they make (phonemes) are the basic blocks we use to create syllables and then words.

These are seven main vowel sounds in Lingala:

Letter	Example	Meaning	English sound
a	bato	people	bat
e	elimo	spirit	hay
ɛ	mɔsɛnzɛli	watchmen	egg
i	likoló	heaven	bee
o	moto	man	boat
ɔ	linɔngi	tower	cot
u	buku	book	do

The letters ɛ and ɔ are both half vowels, ɛ of e and ɔ of o. For many Lingala speakers, they often write them as e and o.

In additional to vowels, Lingala has many consonants (about 29), some of which we need to write with more than one letter:

Letter	Example	Meaning	English sound
b	bokilo	in-law	bag
d	dati	date	dog
f	fololo	flower	fact
g	gɔigɔi	lazy	god
h	hema	tent	house
j	njambe	god (archaic)	French ‘j’
k	likaku	monkey	kick
l	likambo	thing (abstract)	lemon
m	mama	mother	man
mb	mbano	reward	tumble
mp	mpamba	nothing	damp
mw	mwana	child	Tamworth
n	nini	what	nod
nd	ndenge	way	hand
ng	ngonga	hour	sang
nk	nkanda	anger	bank
ns	nsango	news	bins
nt	ntango	time	want
ny	nyama	animal	canyon
nz	nzambe	god	heinz
p	papa	father	pot
r	rulo	scroll	rain
s	solo	truth	sack
sh	shaku	parrot	shame
t	toli	counsel	talk
v	velo	bicycle	vain
w	wolo	gold	watch
y	yango	it	yoghurt
z	zulunalo	magazine	zoo

Some of these letters are used rarely for a few different reasons.

r and h are often used by words that are brought into Lingala from other languages (French, English or other African languages). In old Lingala, r was usually replaced by the letter l, especially in names.

j and sh are very rarely used in modern Lingala. In fact, now the letter z is used in place of it. sh is used with only a handful of words.

Many of the consonant sounds that begin with n and m are sounds that are partly sounded through the nose and are only slightly spoken. Many Lingala speakers will often drop them from the beginnings of words when writing.