Word: kikongo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Kinshasa last week officially rechristened the country the Zaire Republic, and the river the Zaire River. Originally, the word was the result of misunderstanding-or mispronunciation -on the part of a Portuguese naval captain, Diogo Cão, who sailed into the mouth of the river in 1482. In Kikongo, the local language, it was called the Mzadi, which means, naturally, "big water." The mangled word survived the centuries in the name of a town, Santo Antonio do Zaire, on the Angola side of the river, where Portugal still maintains a colonial government by force of arms...
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