Kongo

Kongo, or Kikongo, is a tonal Bantu language spoken by the Kongo people along the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It was the language of the Kingdom of Kongo before the Portuguese founded Angola in 1575, and became the first Bantu language written in Latin characters.

A catechism translated by Kongo teachers from São Salvador was printed in 1624 by the Jesuit Mateus Cardoso, and around 1648 the Kongo priest Manuel Robredo compiled a dictionary for Capuchin missionaries.

Because countless enslaved Kongo speakers were carried across the Atlantic, creolized Kikongo survives in the ritual speech of Afro-American religions in Brazil, Cuba and Haiti, and fed languages such as Gullah in North America and Palenquero in Colombia.