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of Lingala is reduced, both for men and women. The highest level of Lingala is to be
found in Bili, the commercial and educational center of the region.
Fultz & Morgan (1986) performed a Lingala intelligibility test in the Mono-Bili
village of Bida. They rated Lingala comprehension at 59% for men and 10% for women.
The researchers rated on a percentage scale their impressions of a speaker’s ability to
understand a recorded Lingala text. We can’t place too much weight on the specific
numbers in their results, but what we can deduce from the data is that the male Mono
speakers in this village have a mediocre level of Lingala on average, whereas female
Mono speakers have almost no comprehension of Lingala on average.
One unfortunate result of this testing method is that it does not give us a direct
measure of the percentage of people who speak Lingala well versus those with less
proficiency. However, if most women speak almost no Lingala, and many men speak it
poorly, then we can estimate that the percentage of the population who speak it well is
certainly less than 50%, and likely less than 30%.
French is spoken by some Mono people, particularly those with a high level of
education, and carries a high level of prestige with it. It is officially the language of
education in the schools from the third grade on, but in reality Lingala dominates in the
classroom, particularly in the primary grades. I do not have statistics on the percentage of
Mono speakers who know French, but it is certainly less than the percentage proficient in
Lingala.
The Mono people have much contact with the Banda groups immediately to the
north: the Gobu, Togbo and Langbasi groups. They have a high level of comprehension
of the three languages, with Gobu being the highest, Togbo second, and Langbasi third.
This is at least partly due to the inherent intelligibility which results from the genetic
relatedness of the languages. However, acquired intelligibility is likely a factor as well.
As a general rule, if possible, people speak the language of the village they are in. For
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