Kisi is a
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 t ...
of
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 ...
. Though only half or so of the
Kisi people speak the language, use is vigorous where it is still spoken.
Phonology
Other phonemes:
*
and
are in a free variation.
*
and
are not included in a phoneme chart in Kisi because they only occur as glide insertion between historically or morphologically adjacent vowels.
does not occur otherwise. For some speakers,
occurs as a free variant of
which is considered incorrect by other speakers.
Contrastive and obligatory length is marked with /:/. This does not necessarily reflect a difference in the length of production.
Swahili: bei, and Swahili: ngao - These Swahili words have been borrowed into Kisi and pronounced with a diphthong in Kisi
#
References
*
Languages of Tanzania
Northeast Bantu languages
{{Bantu-lang-stub