the university of chicago the phonology and ... - SIL International

example, it is not unknown for a pastor to preach in the language of the local village
people, regardless of his mother tongue.
Of the four languages, Mono appears to be the most dominant. Fultz & Morgan’s
intelligibility scores indicate that in general the speakers of the other languages
understand Mono better than Mono speakers understand the other languages. Mono also
has the largest population of any of these groups.
To a lesser degree, there is some bilingualism in Ngbaka-Minagende, the
language of the largest ethnic group in northwestern D. R. Congo, and in Sango, the trade
language spoken just across the border in CAR.
Despite pressure from these other languages, particularly Lingala, Mono language
use remains vigorous, and it does not appear that Mono is in danger of extinction in the
near future. In fact, Fultz & Morgan (p. 9) observe an increase in the use of Mono in that
several villages which used to speak Yapka, Togbo, or Kpagua, now speak Mono. All in
all, the attitude of Mono speakers towards their language is positive. Mono remains the
language that children learn first at home, and Lingala is normally not learned until a
child goes to school. Mono remains the language used in the local market. In all church
services in the Mono region, the pastors preach in Mono. The only exception to this is in
Bili where many non-Mono speakers reside. Even there, however, the pastor will switch
into Mono during a sermon in order to explain a point more clearly to the Mono
parishioners.
Code switching is common in Mono, particularly in Bili. Lingala and (to a lesser
degree) French words and expressions are commonly inserted into Mono sentences. This
phenomenon is particularly prevalent among the youth, about which the older people say
that they don’t speak Mono pur. At this point in the evolution of the language, it is
probably more appropriate to refer to this as code switching rather than borrowing, but it
is likely that many words from Lingala and French will eventually be integrated into the
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