While reading The Poisonwood Bible, I was fascinated by Kingsolver's extensive use of Lingala, the language used in the region of the Congo where the Price family lives. Lingala is a language in which each word has several meanings, and Kingsolver has the characters in the story use language to reflect themselves. Kingsolver also masterfully wields words to connote subtle ideas throughout the novel.
<Tab/>Throughout the novel are sprinkled many phrases in Lingala, phrases that are eventually learned or heard by any one of the narrators. For example, the villagers have names f…
