DR Congo: 2 regional languages over 5%
French is the official language of national government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is spoken by 51% of the population, but 2 more languages are official in at least one region and each is spoken by over 5%, led by Swahili at 50%.
Which language leads on the pack decides how much of the market can read what it is buying.
76 of a possible 90Tier B, systematic first-party observation. Nothing at this tier is allowed past 90, however good it looks.
Verified September 9, 2026Rechecked every 1095 days, next by September 8, 2029.
Held since January 1, 2020How the market is physically or commercially arranged. The earliest date we are willing to say this held. It may well have been true before that; we do not backdate a record past the evidence we have read. Supported, version 1.
This entry is wrong if
A national census or a nationally representative survey puts the share of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that speaks French outside 46% to 56%.
Written before the record was published, not after. If you can show this, send it to hello@tryorbt.com and the correction goes on the record with the entry.
Evidence
- Tier Bofficial-statisticn = 8
Unicode Consortium: Unicode CLDR 48 supplemental data
CLDR territoryInfo lists 8 languages for this market with a population share.
Read 2026-08-10 · CC BY · about this source
History
- v1created
Derived from the label-language family on 2026-08-10.
Append-only. Nothing in this list is edited or removed once written, including the entries that record our own mistakes. Every change to every record is on the corrections page, and the same log is in entries.json under revisions.
Cite this entry
“DR Congo: 2 regional languages over 5%”, The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0, entry omr:cd:surface:label-language, retrieved September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/cd--surface--label-language. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22679129
Orbt, "DR Congo: 2 regional languages over 5%," Orbt Market Index, entry omr:cd:surface:label-language, verified September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/cd--surface--label-language.
@misc{orbt-cd-surface-label-language,
title = {DR Congo: 2 regional languages over 5%},
author = {{Orbt}},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.22679129},
note = {The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0 (dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22679129), entry omr:cd:surface:label-language. Verified 2026-09-09},
howpublished = {\url{https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/cd--surface--label-language}},
license = {Orbt Index Public Licence. Free to quote and cite; not to redistribute}
}For a deck, a brief or a chat.
Free to quote, cite and act on. Not to resell or redistribute — the sources ask that of us, and each one’s terms are named. Machine-readable: entries.json carries this record under the id omr:cd:surface:label-language, with the same evidence and falsifier.
Read next
Which language a pack has to be in, by marketThis entry is one row of 125. The whole table, ranked, with every source.The same measure, elsewhere
We asked this of 125 markets. Here is where the answer differs most.
- GuatemalaGuatemala: 2 regional languages over 5%
- SpainSpain: 2 regional languages over 5%
- BeninBenin: no language reaches half the country
- BhutanBhutan: no language reaches half the country
- Burkina FasoBurkina Faso: no language reaches half the country
- Central African RepublicCentral African Rep.: no language reaches half the country
Also true of Democratic Republic of the Congo
What else we hold on this market, heaviest first.
Everything we hold on Democratic Republic of the CongoEvery record for this corridor