Editing Lingala (section)

== Variation ==
The Lingala language can be divided into several [[Dialect|regiolects]] and [[sociolect]]s. The major regional varieties are northwestern Lingala, Kinshasa Lingala and Brazzaville Lingala.

Literary Lingala (''lingala littéraire'' or ''lingala classique'' in French) is a standardized form used mostly in education and news broadcasts on state-owned radio or television and in Roman Catholic religious services, It is taught as a subject at some educational levels. It is historically associated with the work of the Catholic Church, the Belgian [[CICM Missionaries|CICM]] missionaries in particular. It has a seven-vowel system ({{IPA|/a/ /e/ /ɛ/ /i/ /o/ /ɔ/ /u/}}) with an obligatory tense-lax [[vowel harmony]]. It also has a full range of morphological noun prefixes with mandatory grammatical agreement system with subject–verb, or noun–modifier for each of class. It is largely used in formal functions and in some forms of writing. Most native speakers of Spoken Lingala and Kinshasa Lingala consider it incomprehensible.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kazadi |first1=Ntole |title=Rapport Général |journal=Linguistique et Sciences Humaines |date=1987 |volume=27 |page=287}}</ref>

Northwestern (or ''Equateur'') Lingala is the product of the (incomplete) internalization by Congolese of the prescriptive rules the CICM missionaries intended when designing Literary Lingala.<ref>{{cite book |last1=De Boeck |first1=Louis B. |title=Manuel de lingala tenant compte du langage parlé et du langage littéraire |date=1952 |publisher=Schuet |location=Brussels}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bokamba |first1=Eyamba G. |last2=Bokamba |first2=Molingo V. |title=Tósolola na Lingála: A multidimensional approach to the teaching and learning of Lingála as a foreign language |date=2004 |publisher=NALRC |location=Madison}}</ref> The northwest is a zone where the CICM missionaries strongly supported the network of schools.
  
Spoken Lingala (called ''lingala parlé'' in French) is the variety mostly used in Lingalaphones' day-to-day lives. It has a full morphological noun prefix system, but the agreement system in the noun phrase is laxer than the literary variety's. There is a five-vowel system and no vowel harmony. Spoken Lingala is largely used in informal functions, and the majority of Lingala songs use spoken Lingala. Modern spoken Lingala is influenced by French; French verbs, for example, may be "lingalized", adding Lingala inflection prefixes and suffixes: "acomprenaki te" or "acomprendraki te" ("he did not understand", using the French word ''comprendre'') instead of classic Lingala "asímbaki ntína te" (literally: "s/he grasped/held the root/cause not"). These French influences are more prevalent in Kinshasa and indicate an erosion of the language as education in French becomes accessible to more of the population. There are pronunciation differences between "Catholic Lingala" and "Protestant Lingala", for example nzala/njala ("hunger").

''Lingala ya Bayankee'' (sometimes called ''Yanké'') is a sociolect widely used in Kinshasa, e.g., by street youth, street vendors, criminal gangs and homeless children.<ref>Nassenstein, Nico. "Democratic Republic of the Congo: lingala ya Bayankee/Yanké." In ''Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change'', pp. 28–46. Routledge, 2022.</ref> ''Langila'' is a little-studied language game (or ludic practice) musicians initially created shortly after 2000 that is increasingly used in social media and sites of cultural production.