The term "Kongo" encompasses a group of Bantu dialects, Guthrie's general heading (H10) as well as the subbranch (H16). It is spoken in Angola, Congo, Gabon, and Zaire.
UBS (1982) notes 3 million speakers in Congo alone. The 1960 Angola census notes 621,787 Kongo speakers. Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) list 1,500,000. Alexandre (1981) tentatively suggests a minimum of 2.5 million. UBS (1991; cited in Grimes 1996) estimates 3,217,000 speakers.
Kongo is a literary language and a language vehicular (known as Kituba) used throughout this area of Africa. Kongo is used as a lingua franca in Zaire and in metropolitan Brazzaville. UNESCO/UNDP has prepared materials for a literacy campaign in Angola. Kikongo is heard on La Voix de la Révolution (Congo) and La Voix du Zaïre.
There is a standard literary orthography, but tones are generally not marked.
Because of Kikongo's mutual intelligibility and the existence of a standard orthography, only one set of materials would be necessary.
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