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Yannick Bolasie has revealed the ‘secret’ language he uses with Romelu Lukaku to bamboozle Premier League defenders.

The Everton forwards are the top flight’s most prolific partnership this season and they combined to put the Blues in front against West Ham on Sunday.

And Bolasie says he and Lukaku talk to each other on the pitch using a dialect of Democratic Republic of Congo - Lingala.

Bolasie is an DR Congo international while Belgian international Lukaku is of Congolese descent and the pair says few defenders can understand what they are saying.

“We are both very proud of our heritage,” Bolasie said.

“It really helps when we talk in our language, Lingala, and I know his cousin, who plays with me for DR Congo.

“We speak Lingala on the pitch.

“There aren’t too many defenders in the league who speak it, so that gives us a little bit of an advantage.

“It’s particularly useful because it’s quick.”

What is Lingala?

Lingala is a Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large parts of the Republic of the Congo, as well as parts of Angola and the Central African Republic. It has over 10 million speakers, and in its basic vocabulary, it borrows words from different other languages such as in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Examples

Awa = here

mobalie = boy

Lingala was first written by missionaries in about 1900.