Luba-Kasai, also known as Cilubà or Tshilubà, Luba-Lulua, is a Bantu language (Zone L) of Central Africa and a national language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, alongside Lingala, Swahili, and Kikongo ya leta.
An eastern dialect is spoken by the Luba people of the East Kasai Region and a western dialect by the Lulua people of the West Kasai Region. The total number of speakers was estimated at 6.3 million in 1991.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a multilingual country where an estimated total of 242 languages are spoken. Ethnologue lists 215 living languages. The official language, since the colonial period, is French, one of the languages of Belgium. Four other languages, all of them Bantu based, have the status of national language: Kikongo-Kituba, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba.
Democratic Republic of the Congo is a Francophone country, where, as of 2024, 55.393 million (50.69%) out of 109.276 million people speak French. In fact, 74% of the population use French as a lingua franca, showing that many speak it as a second or third language, even if they are not fully proficient.