Misplaced Pages

#670329

33-565: Pointe-Noire ( French pronunciation: [pwɛ̃t.nwaʁ] ; Kongo : Njinji , French : Ndjindji with the letter d following French spelling standards) is the second largest city in the Republic of the Congo , following the capital of Brazzaville , and an autonomous department and a commune since the 2002 Constitution. Before this date it was the capital of the Kouilou region (now

66-640: A tropical savanna climate under the Köppen climate classification . The city has a wet season that spans from October through April, while the remaining 5 months form the dry season . Pointe-Noire receives roughly 1,000 millimetres (39 in) of precipitation annually. Temperatures are somewhat cooler during the dry season with average temperatures roughly at 24 degrees Celsius. During the wet season, average temperatures hover around 28 degrees Celsius. Football teams include Association Sportive des Cheminots and Jeunesse Sportive les Bougainvillées . Pointe-Noire

99-665: A railroad that would connect Brazzaville , the terminus of the river navigation on the Congo River and the Ubangui River , with the Atlantic coast. As rapids make it impossible to navigate on the Congo River past Brazzaville, and the coastal railroad terminus site had to allow for the construction of a deep-sea port, authorities chose the site of Ponta Negra instead of Libreville as originally envisaged. In 1923, it

132-462: A sea of azure wavy three streams of silver" Pointe-Noire is a commune divided into six urban boroughs ( arrondissements ): Pointe-Noire is also a department which include the area of the commune and, since 2011, the district of Tchiamba-Nzassi , formerly part of the Kouilou department. The name Pointe-Noire ("Black Point") originated with Portuguese navigators who saw a block of black rocks on

165-465: A separate department). It is situated on a headland between Pointe-Noire Bay and the Atlantic Ocean . Pointe-Noire is the main commercial centre of the country and has a population of 1,420,612 inhabitants in 2023. The coat of arms of the city of Pointe-Noire is: "Gold at the point of sand accompanied by two silver oars, the handle gules, laid in chevron poured, the tip and oars moving from

198-519: Is twinned with: Kongo language Historically, it was spoken by many of those Africans who for centuries were taken captive, transported across the Atlantic, and sold as slaves in the Americas . For this reason, creolized forms of the language are found in ritual speech of Afro-American religions , especially in Brazil , Cuba , Puerto Rico , Dominican Republic , Haiti , and Suriname . It

231-826: Is also one of the sources of the Gullah language , which formed in the Low Country and Sea Islands of the United States Southeast. The Palenquero creole in Colombia is also related to Kong creole. Kongo was the language of the Kingdom of Kongo prior to the creation of Angola by the Portuguese Crown in 1575. The Berlin Conference (1884-1885) among major European powers divided the rest of

264-453: Is contrastive vowel length . /m/ and /n/ also have syllabic variants, which contrast with prenasalized consonants. Kikongo has a system of 18 noun classes in which nouns are classified according to noun prefixes. Most of the classes go in pairs (singular and plural) except for the locative and infinitive classes which do not admit plurals. NB: Noun prefixes may or may not change from one Kikongo variant to another (e.g. class 7:

297-531: Is the essential centre of the oil industry of the Republic of Congo , one of the main oil producers in Central Africa . Congolese oil has been largely exploited by the French company Elf Aquitaine since its discovery around 1980. Pointe-Noire is also known for its fishing industry , which is often at odds with the oil development. Local waters are reportedly getting overfished. Formerly, Pointe-Noire

330-741: The Loango coast created additional dictionaries. Bernardo da Canecattim published a word list in 1805. Baptist missionaries who arrived in Kongo in 1879 (from Great Britain) developed a modern orthography of the language. American missionary W. Holman Bentley arranged for his Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language to be published by the University of Michigan in 1887. In the preface, Bentley gave credit to Nlemvo, an African, for his assistance. He described "the methods he used to compile

363-546: The diaspora , such as: Prior to the Berlin Conference , the people called themselves "Bisi Kongo" (plural) and "Mwisi Kongo" (singular). Today they call themselves " Bakongo " (pl.) and "Mukongo" (sing.). Kongo was the earliest Bantu language to be written in Latin characters. Portuguese created a dictionary in Kongo, the first of any Bantu language. A catechism was produced under the authority of Diogo Gomes, who

SECTION 10

#1732783634671

396-475: The 19th and 20th centuries, in collaboration with Kongo linguists and evangelists such as Ndo Nzuawu Nlemvo (or Ndo Nzwawu Nlemvo; Dom João in Portuguese) and Miguel NeKaka, marked the standardisation of Kikongo. A large proportion of the people at San Salvador, and in its neighbourhood, pronounce s and z before i as sh and j; for the sound sh, the letter x was adopted (as in Portuguese), while z before i

429-557: The Bantu language family. According to Malcolm Guthrie , Kikongo is in the language group H10, the Kongo languages . Other languages in the same group include Bembe (H11). Ethnologue 16 counts Ndingi (H14) and Mboka (H15) as dialects of Kongo, though it acknowledges they may be distinct languages. Bastin, Coupez and Man's classification of the language (as Tervuren) is more recent and precise than that of Guthrie on Kikongo. The former say

462-463: The Congolese government, Pointe-Noire has seen the emergence of some young universities. The city has several private institutes and universities: Pointe-Noire is home to Agostinho-Neto International Airport which as of August 2023 had direct flights to Abidjan , Addis Ababa , Brazzaville , Cotonou , Douala , Istanbul , Libreville , Luanda and Paris and was the second busiest airport in

495-693: The Pointe Noire terminus. On 22 June 2010 a train departing from Pointe-Noire derailed resulting in the deaths of many passengers. The railway was built by the French between 1921 and 1934 during the French colonial rule in Congo. Pointe-Noire has a taxi-bus network that runs throughout the entire city. Among the places of worship , they are predominantly Christian churches and temples: Roman Catholic Diocese of Pointe-Noire ( Catholic Church ), Evangelical Church of Congo ( World Communion of Reformed Churches ) and Assemblies of God . Pointe-Noire has

528-416: The capital to Brazzaville, since Pointe-Noire was under the influence of the political opposition. Pointe-Noire continued growing, and was the most modern city in 1960, when Congo gained independence. Then, the oil discovery around 1980 re-attracted people and Elf-Aquitaine facilities. The population doubled by 1982, and reached 360,000 in 1994. Civil wars in 1997 and 1999 caused an influx of refugees from

561-838: The city the AEF's seaport . In 1950, Pointe-Noire had 20,000 inhabitants, and became the capital of the Middle Congo , while Brazzaville was the capital city of the AEF. In 1957, the Middle-Congo became the Republic of Congo, although it was still not independent. Incidents which occurred during 1958 legislative elections led the leaders of the Democratic Union for the Defence of African Interests ( Union démocratique pour la défense des interets africains , UDDIA) to transfer

594-528: The country. Pointe-Noire is also the terminus of the Congo-Ocean Railway , the railway station being a notable building. As of 2014 the railway was operating the La Gazelle train service every other day to Brazzaville and intermediate destinations. Thanks to its rapid growth, the city now includes Tié-Tié Railway Station and Ngondji Railway Station , the next railway stations after

627-627: The dictionary, which included sorting and correcting 25,000 slips of paper containing words and their definitions." Eventually W. Holman Bentley, with the special assistance of João Lemvo, produced a complete Christian Bible in 1905. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has published a translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Fiote. The work of English, Swedish and other missionaries in

660-590: The headland in 1484. From then on, Pointe-Noire, called in Portuguese Ponta Negra , became a maritime point of reference, and then a small fishing village starting in 1883, after the French signed a treaty with local people, the Loangos . In 1910, French Equatorial Africa ( Afrique équatoriale française , AEF) was created, and French companies were allowed to exploit the Middle Congo (modern-day Congo Brazzaville). It soon became necessary to build

693-565: The kingdom into three territories. These are now parts of the DRC ( Kongo Central and Bandundu ), the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon. Kikongo is the base for the Creole language Kituba , also called Kikongo de l'État and Kikongo ya Leta ( French and Kituba, respectively, for "Kikongo of the state administration" or "Kikongo of the State"). The constitution of the Republic of the Congo uses

SECTION 20

#1732783634671

726-408: The language has the following dialects: NB: Kisikongo is not the protolanguage of the Kongo language cluster. Not all varieties of Kikongo are mutually intelligible (for example, 1. Civili is better understood by Kiyombe- and Iwoyo-speakers than by Kisikongo- or Kimanianga-speakers; 2. Kimanianga is better understood by Kikongo of Boko and Kintandu-speakers than by Civili or Iwoyo-speakers). There

759-524: The name Kituba , and Democratic Republic of the Congo uses the term Kikongo . Kituba (i.e. Kikongo ya Leta) is used as the term in the DRC administration. This can be explained by the fact that Kikongo ya Leta is often mistakenly called Kikongo (i.e. KiNtandu, KiManianga, KiNdibu, etc.). Kikongo and Kituba are spoken in: Many African slaves transported in the Atlantic slave trade spoke Kikongo. Its influence can be seen in many creole languages in

792-516: The noun prefix ci is used in civili, iwoyo or ciladi (lari) and the noun prefix ki is used in kisikongo, kiyombe, kizombo, kimanianga,...). NB: Not all variants of Kikongo have completely the same personal pronouns and when conjugating verbs, the personal pronouns become stressed pronouns (see below and/or the references posted). Conjugating the verb ( mpanga in Kikongo) to be ( kukala or kuba ; also kuena , kwena or kuwena in Kikongo) in

825-457: The present: Conjugating the verb ( mpanga in Kikongo) to have ( kuvua in Kikongo; also kuba na or kukala ye ) in the present : NB: In Kikongo, the conjugation of a tense to different persons is done by changing verbal prefixes (highlighted in bold). These verbal prefixes are also personal pronouns. However, not all variants of Kikongo have completely the same verbal prefixes and

858-525: The same verbs (cf. the references posted). The ksludotique site uses several variants of Kikongo (kimanianga,...). In addition, the roller coaster Kumba at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida gets its name from the Kongo word for "roar". According to Filomão CUBOLA, article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Fiote translates to: Politics of the Republic of

891-634: The surrounding provinces ( Lékoumou , Niari , Bouenza , Pool ) towards Pointe-Noire, causing the population to climb to over 1 million inhabitants. Recently the Government has proposed the development of a new bulk resource port to be constructed at Point Indienne , 30 kilometres (19 mi) to the north of the Port of Pointe-Noire. A meeting was held on 18 December 2012 with a collective of 10 Congo government ministries and invited mining companies to discuss future development opportunities. Pointe-Noire

924-433: The work of Félix do Espírito Santo (also a Kongo). The dictionary was written in about 1648 for the use of Capuchin missionaries. The principal author was Manuel Robredo, a secular priest from Kongo (after he became a Capuchin, he was named Francisco de São Salvador). The back of this dictionary includes a two-page sermon written in Kongo. The dictionary has some 10,000 words. In the 1780s, French Catholic missionaries to

957-465: The École supérieure de commerce et de gestion (Business), Institut UCAC-ICAM (Engineering) and the Centre d’éducation, de formation et d’apprentissage en mécanique auto (Automotive Engineering). The Higher Institute of Technology of Central Africa has a campus in the city. There are also several other institutions of higher education in the city. As a result of the decentralisation policy put in place by

990-458: Was born in 1557 in Kongo to Portuguese parents and became a Jesuit priest. No version of that survives today. In 1624, Mateus Cardoso, another Portuguese Jesuit , edited and published a Kongo translation of the Portuguese catechism compiled by Marcos Jorge. The preface says that the translation was done by Kongo teachers from São Salvador (modern Mbanza Kongo ) and was probably partially

1023-525: Was chosen to be the terminus of the Congo-Ocean Railway (CFCO). In 1927, drinking water became available in the city, which had about 3,000 inhabitants. The airport was built in 1932. In 1934, Governor Raphael Antonetti inaugurated the Congo-Ocean Railway . The first hospital was built in 1936. That same year, Bank of West Africa (BAO) opened its first branch in the city. In 1942, the Pointe-Noire Harbour welcomed its first ship, and made

Pointe-Noire - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-483: Was home to a potash exploitation which led to the construction of a wharf , currently closed to the public. Lycée Français Charlemagne , a French international school for primary and secondary school children, is in Pointe-Noire. It also hosts a British international school for children aged 0 to 18 years, called Connie's Academy. The city is home to the École Supérieure de Technologie du Littoral (technology)

1089-460: Was written as j. Our books are read over a much wider area than the district of San Salvador, and in those parts where s and z remain unchanged before i, the use of x and j has proved a difficulty; it has therefore been decided to use s and z only, and in those parts where the sound of these letters is softened before i they will be naturally softened in pronunciation, and where they remain unchanged they will be pronounced as written. Kikongo belongs to

#670329