Part of the Bantu language family, Lingala is a significant lingua franca in the Central Africa region. It is one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, predominating in the northwest and the capital, Kinshasa. It is also spoken in the northern half of Congo, and is even spoken in parts of the Central African Republic, Angola, and South Sudan. It’s estimated that between 15 and 20 million people speak Lingala as a first language, whilst a further 25 million speak it as a second language.