ABSTRACT
This chapter presents field data on language accommodation gathered during the period 1980-88 while the author was living and working in Lower Zaire. It focuses on a group of Catholic sisters numbering about one hundred women, over eighty of whom are Africans. The majority of the sisters, including the expatriates, grew up with a mother tongue other than French, the official language of the country since independence. Since all of the communities are ethnically mixed, the adopted formal language of the community when the sisters are among themselves is generally French, which serves literally as a lingua franca. French is normally used among the sisters for prayer and worship, at meetings, and in table conversation. The chapter also briefly offer some field data on the frequent incorporation of words of one language into the other, as observed firstly within the religious community by the sisters, both Zairean and expatriate, and secondly among the general population.
