DICTIONARIES AND KONGO HISTORY Langues, culture et histoire Koongo aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, à travers les documents linguistiques. Par JEAN DE DIEU NSONDÉ. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995. Pp. 249. FF140, paperback (ISBN 2-7384-3953-5).

Abstract

The core of this interesting book is an attempt to discern outlines of Kongo culture from the dictionaries left behind by the French mission to Kakongo between 1768 and 1776. These dictionaries, which are found in London, Paris, Rome, Besançon and Genoa, are both French to Kikongo and Kikongo to French and sometimes run to more than 700 pages, often containing examples of usage as well as the words themselves. Indeed, when one considers the seventeenth-century linguistic materials, such as the dictionary (utilized by Nsondé) and the catechism (not used) and the excellent modern dictionaries of Laman and Bentley, Kikongo is one of the rare African languages that can be effectively documented over a three-century period.