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Kerewe Language
Kerewe, or Kerebe, is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken on Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria, the largest inland island in Africa. Kerewe phonology prohibits vowel sequences: if a vowel sequence arises in the underlying representation of a phrase, the sequence becomes either a long vowel or a Glide (linguistics), glide followed by a long vowel in the surface representation. Literature n December 1877 two Anglican missionaries Shergold Smith and Mr. O’Neill were martyred on Ukerewe Island by King Lukonge. In 1868 the Missionaries of Africa, known as the White Fathers (Pères Blancs) arrived at the Lake Victoria region in 1879, and at Ukerewe island in 1880. The first attempts at Bible translation into Kerewe were some Bible stories in 1899, liturgical Gospels in 1921 and 1937 and Gospel harmony in 1930. The New Testament was translated into Kerewe by French Canadian Padri Almas Simard (1907-1954) from the White Fathers, working with several native speakers. The translation r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. According to the United Nations, Tanzania has a population of million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator. Many important hominid fossils have been found in Tanzania, such as 6-million-year-old Pliocene hominid fossils. The genus Australopithecus ranged across Africa between 4 and 2 million years ago, and the oldest remains of the genus ''Homo'' are found near Lake Olduvai. Following the rise of '' Homo erectus'' 1.8 million years ago, humanity spread ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Nyanza Languages
The West Nyanza languages are a subgroup of the Great Lakes Bantu languages spoken in Uganda, Tanzania and the DRC. History People spoke proto-West Nyanza in the first half of the first millennium CE and their descendants in turn formed two speech communities, one speaking Proto-Rutara and the other Proto-North Nyanza. North Nyanza began to be spoken as a language on the northwestern shore of Lake Victoria in the eighth century CE while Proto-Rutara remained in the Kagera Region. Many of the northern Rutara peoples (whose descendants founded Kitara) migrating northwestwards into the drier and more open woody savanna grasslands of western Uganda developed a political economy based mostly on intensive Cattle keeping and cereal growing (especially of Finger millet) while the North Nyanza peoples (whose descendants founded Buganda and Busoga) created a land-intensive political economy around their banana and plantain groves and fishing near the very well-watered shores of Lake victo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glide (linguistics)
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the consonants ''y'' and ''w'', in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively. Written in IPA, ''y'' and ''w'' are near to the vowels ''ee'' and ''oo'' in ''seen'' and ''moon,'' written in IPA. The term ''glide'' may alternatively refer to any type of transitional sound, not necessarily a semivowel. Classification Semivowels form a subclass of approximants. Although "semivowel" and "approximant" are sometimes treated as synonymous, most authors use the term "semivowel" for a more restricted set; there is no universally agreed-upon definition, and the exact details may vary from author to author. For example, do not consider the labiodental approximant to be a semivowel, while proposes that it should be considered one. In the International Phoneti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long Vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, for example in: Arabic, Estonian, Finnish, Fijian, Kannada, Malayalam, Japanese, Latin, Old English, Scottish Gaelic, and Vietnamese. While vowel length alone does not change word meaning in most dialects of English, it is said to do so in a few dialects, such as Australian English, Lunenburg English, New Zealand English, and South African English. It also plays a lesser phonetic role in Cantonese, unlike in other varieties of Chinese. Many languages do not distinguish vowel length phonemically, meaning that vowel length does not change meaning, and the length of a vowel is conditioned by other factors such as the phonetic characteristics of the sounds around it, for instance whether the vowel is followed by a voiced or a voiceless cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Underlying Representation
In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology in the field of linguistics, the underlying representation (UR) or underlying form (UF) of a word or morpheme is the abstract form that a word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it. By contrast, a surface representation is the phonetic representation of the word or sound. The concept of an underlying representation is central to generative grammar. If more phonological rules apply to the same underlying form, they can apply wholly independently of each other or in a feeding or counterbleeding order. The underlying representation of a morpheme is considered to be invariable across related forms (except in cases of suppletion), despite alternations among various allophones on the surface. Examples In many cases, the underlying form is simply the phonemic form. For example, in many varieties of American English, the phoneme in a word like ''wet'' can surface either as an unreleased ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vowel Sequence
In phonology, hiatus, diaeresis (), or dieresis describes the occurrence of two separate vowel sounds in adjacent syllables with no intervening consonant. When two vowel sounds instead occur together as part of a single syllable, the result is called a diphthong. Preference Some languages do not have diphthongs, except sometimes in rapid speech, or they have a limited number of diphthongs but also numerous vowel sequences that cannot form diphthongs and so appear in hiatus. That is the case of Japanese, Nuosu, Bantu languages like Swahili, and Lakota. Examples are Japanese () 'blue/green', and Swahili 'purify', both with three syllables. Avoidance Many languages disallow or restrict hiatus and avoid it by deleting or assimilating the vowel or by adding an extra consonant. Epenthesis A consonant may be added between vowels (epenthesis) to prevent hiatus. That is most often a semivowel or a glottal, but all kinds of other consonants can be used as well, depending on the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukerewe Island
Ukerewe is the fifth-largest lake island in the world. With an area of , it is also the largest island in Lake Victoria and the largest lake island in Africa. Ukerewe Island is located in the Ukerewe District of Mwanza Region in the great lakes area of Tanzania, north of the city of Mwanza to which it is linked by ferry. A ferry crossing of links the island to a dirt road on the eastern lake shore, which runs to Kibara and the city of Musoma in Mara Region. The shoreline of Ukerewe Island is carved into numerous bays and it is surrounded by at least a dozen smaller islands. Its largest community is the town of Nansio. Ukerewe island is known for having a large population of Africans with albinism. Many of the first of them to live there were taken to and abandoned on the island by their families as children. Despite comprising an exceptionally high percentage of the island's population, they are still, as throughout Tanzania, an oppressed minority on the island, though it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Language
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages."Guthrie (1967-71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". For Bantuic, Linguasphere has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Lakes Bantu
The Great Lakes Bantu languages, also known as Lacustrine Bantu and Bantu zone J, are a group of Bantu languages of East Africa. They were recognized as a group by the ''Tervuren'' team, who posited them as an additional zone (zone J) to Guthrie's largely geographic classification of Bantu. History By 500BC, proto-Great Lakes Bantu speakers initially settled between Lakes Kivu and Rweru in Rwanda, before rapidly spreading as far east as Kenya. Languages The languages are, according to Bastin, Coupez, & Mann (1999), with Sumbwa added per Nurse (2003): *''Gungu'' (E10) *'' Bwari (Kabwari)'' (D50) *Konzo (D40): Konjo, Nande, ? Kobo * Shi–Havu (D50): Hunde, Havu, Shi, Tembo, Nyindu, Fuliiro *Rwanda-Rundi (D60): Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Shubi, Hangaza, Ha, Vinza *Nyoro–Ganda (E10): Ganda, Nyankore, Nyoro, Tooro, Hema, Chiga, Soga, Gwere, West Nyala, Ruli ::(See also Rutara languages, Runyakitara language, Nkore-Kiga) *Haya–Jita (E20): Haya–Rashi, Talinga-Bw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America. In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world's ninth-largest continental lake, containing about of water. Lake Victoria occupies a shallow depression in Africa. The lake has an average depth of and a maximum depth of .United Nations, ''Development and Harmonisation of Environmental Laws Volume 1: Report on the Legal and Institutional Issues in the Lake Victoria Basin'', United Nations, 1999, page 17 Its catchment area covers . The lake has a shoreline of when digitized at the 1:25,000 level, with islands constituting 3.7% of this length. The lake's area is divided among three countries: Kenya occupies 6% (), Uganda 45% (), and Tanzania 49% (). Though having multiple local language names ( luo, Nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northeast Bantu
The Northeast Bantu languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in East Africa. In Guthrie's geographic classification, they fall within Bantu zones E50 plus E46 (Sonjo), E60 plus E74a (Taita), F21–22, J, G60, plus Northeast Coast Bantu (of zones E & G).Derek Nurse, 2003, ''The Bantu Languages'' Some of these languages (F21, most of E50, and some of J) share a phonological innovation called Dahl's law that is unlikely to be borrowed as a productive process, though individual words reflecting Dahl's law have been borrowed into neighboring languages. The languages, or clusters, are: *Kikuyu–Kamba Thagiicu (primarily E50): ** Sonjo (E40) ** Cuka **Meru (incl. Tharaka, Mwimbi-Muthambi) **South ***Kamba, Daisu *** Gikuyu, Embu *Chaga–Taita **Taita (Dawida; E70) – Sagalla **Chaga languages (E60) *Northeast Coast Bantu (G10-G40): Swahili (E70), ''etc.'' *Takama: Sukuma– Nyamwezi (+ Konongo–Ruwila), Kimbu (F20), Iramba–Isanzu, Nyaturu (Rimi) (F30), ? Holohol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages."Guthrie (1967-71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". For Bantuic, Linguasphere has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
