created by musicians shortly after the millennium and increasingly used in social media and sites of cultural production. Phonology Vowels Vowel harmony Lingala words show vowel harmony to some extent. The close-mid vowels and normally do not mix with the open-mid vowels and in words. For example, the words ndɔbɔ 'fishhook' and ndobo 'mouse trap' are found, but not *ndɔbo or *ndobɔ. Vowel shift The Lingala spoken in Kinshasa shows a vowel shift from to , leading to the absence of the phoneme in favor of . The same occurs with and , leading to just . So in Kinshasa, a native speaker will say mbóte as , compared to the more traditional pronunciation of . Consonants (1) is allophonic with depending on the dialect. Prenasalized consonants The prenasalized stops formed with a nasal followed by a voiceless plosive are allophonic to the voiceless plosives alone in some variations of Lingala. : or e.g.: mpɛmbɛ́ni is pronounced but in some variations : or e.g.: ntɔ́ngó is pronounced but in some variations : or e.g.: nkanya (fork) is pronounced but in some variations : or (inside a word) e.g.: nyɔnsɔ is pronounced but in some variations The prenasalized voiced occlusives, do not vary. Tones Lingala being a tonal language, tone is a distinguishing feature in minimal pairs, e.g.: mutu (human being) and mutú (head), or kokoma (to write) and kokóma (to arrive). There are two tones possible, the normal one is low and the second one is high. There is a third, less common tone – starting high, dipping low and then ending high – all within the same vowel sound, e.g.: bôngó (therefore). Tonal morphology Tense morphemes carry tones. koma (komL-a : write) inflected gives simple present L-aL : nakoma naL-komL-aL (I write) subjunctive H-aL : nákoma naH-komL-aL (I would write) present: nakomí naL-komL-iH (I have been writing) sepela (seLpel-a : enjoy) inflected gives simple present L-aL : osepela oL-seLpelL-aL (you-SG enjoy) subjunctive H-aL : ósepéla oH-seLpelH-aH (you-SG would enjoy) present L-iH: osepelí oL-seLpelL-iH (you-SG have been enjoying) Grammar Noun class system Like all Bantu languages, Lingala has a noun class system in which nouns are classified according to the prefixes they bear and according to the prefixes they trigger in sentences. The table below shows the noun classes of Lingala, ordered according to the numbering system that is widely used in descriptions of Bantu languages. Individual classes pair up