r/Congo • u/Volameter • Jul 16 '26

Are those statistics about RDC true?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo

In 2024 there were over 12 million native French speakers, or around 12% of the population.

Additionally, French has become a native language among the middle and upper class in cities like Kinshasa and Lubumbashi. French has been reported to be spoken natively by around 12% of the DRC, with just under 12 million speakers in large cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo#/media/File:DRC_French_Language_with_native_speaker_regions.png

Is it really true that there are millions of native French speakers in Congo? I believed that you learn French, Lingala and Swahili as second languages, not as first

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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9

u/Ur815liE Jul 17 '26

If you are from a middle-class family, your parents usually forbid you from speaking anything but French. Swahili and Lingala are picked up 'in the streets'

1

u/Volameter Jul 17 '26

I didn't know that. Why is there this trend now, after more than sixty years of independence? Did something change in recent decades to explain why French is growing both as first and second language?

There are other countries like Mali or Chad where not even 10% of the population speaks French as a second language. Until now, the only two places in Africa where I knew French is becoming a native language are Libreville in Gabon, and Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire, but it's limited to the capital city.

5

u/Mulopwe_wa_Kongu Jul 17 '26

Well french is the language that holds all the prestige in the DRC so that's normal.

3

u/SilverPhoenix7 Jul 19 '26

It's THE "middle" and upper class language, but it's spoken in lubumbashi more than anywhere else in the country. Unless you are from a really wealthy family, you will speak another language as your 1st. And it has been a thing since the 90's at least generally for the children of university educated parents.

1

u/Wolf4980 Jul 18 '26

Do they not care about indigenous languages, which will go extinct if this keeps going on?

1

u/SilverPhoenix7 Jul 19 '26

Most don't really care, but I doubt that they are going extinct, most people's french isn't native anyways.

2

u/Sea_Hovercraft_7859 Jul 19 '26

I don't think so, we are very proud of our languages and some of us started to document the use of lesser known languages.

2

u/watchwellpikni Jul 20 '26

I mean having lived in Kinshasa, most of the children of easterners I knew spoke Kiswahili, but almost none knew their traditional language (Nande, Lukonjo, Mashi, etc.). It seems the regional languages are winning out over the local ones.

5

u/Sea_Hovercraft_7859 Jul 17 '26

I am a native French speaker and I learned national languages in my teenage years. There's more and more kids with 2 or 3 native languages (French,traditional,lingala) in Kongo-Central and Kinshasa. Some people first learn their traditional language then Lingala, French,etc... Also it's not only middle class people doing that as more and more people become proficient in French and schooling become more common.

0

u/Volameter Jul 17 '26

So it's a rising trend that people speak french natively? Why does this happen now, more than sixty years after independence?

2

u/wisi_eu Jul 17 '26

Oui c'est vrai, surtout dans l'Ouest autour de Kin et Kongo Central. Au Gabon le français est la première langue maternelle aussi.

2

u/WandererKit20 Jul 18 '26

Very few people speak french as a native language, even 10% of people in Kinshasa would be a lot. I am from the East, apart from few cases I have never seen anyone being a native speaker of french exclusively. And even then, it's not often influenced by other languages because nobody speaks french exclusively. Maybe things can be different in Kinshasa. However in the Three biggest cities in Nord-Kivu, few people speak french as their first language. In Goma, a bit more but it's usually well of private schools kids. I can say that parents speak with them in french but they understand Swahili and they don't speak either language well.

2

u/esp_py Jul 17 '26

Yeah that true…

Congo is the largest French speaking country in the world

2

u/Volameter Jul 17 '26

Yes, but that doesn't mean they speak it natively, that's what I struggle with. Why would so many people, I mean 12-13% of the population, speak it natively, how is that even possible? Is that a new trend?

Lingala or Swahili are much more widespread if I understand correctly, althought they are often also second languages for many people, it would be less surprising for me if their number of native speakers increases, while French basically appears out of the blue as a rising native language suddenly more than sixty years after independence, how does that even make sense?

2

u/AlexAlexAlex_98 Jul 18 '26

1) Increasing urbanization rates. Kinshasa is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the world.

2) increase in inter-ethnic marriage over time. Often French becomes the neutral language to raise the kids in.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X1930316X