Lese is a
Central Sudanic language
Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...
of northeastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
, as well as a name for the people who speak this language. The Lese people,
live in association with the
Efé Pygmies and share their language, which is occasionally known as Lissi or Efe.
Although Efe is given a separate ISO code, Bahuchet (2006) notes that it is not even a distinct dialect, though there is dialectical variation in the language of the Lese (Dese, Karo).
Lese is spoken in
Mambasa Territory,
Watsa Territory, and
Irumu Territory.
[Bokula, Moiso & Agozia-Kario Irumu. 1994. Bibliographie et matériaux lexicaux des langues Moru-Mangbetu (Soudan-Central, Zaïre). ''Annales Aequatoria'' 10: 203‒245.]
Phonology
Consonants
* Lese can also have a doubly articulated
Í¡p
* /r/ can also be heard as a tap sound
¾
Vowels
* In rare cases, /É›/ can be heard in phonological opposition as a rounded
“
References
*Bahuchet, Serge. 2006. "Languages of the African Rainforest « Pygmy » Hunter-Gatherers: Language Shifts without Cultural Admixture
In ''Historical linguistics and hunter-gatherers populations in global perspective''. Leipzig.
African Pygmies
Central Sudanic languages
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
{{NiloSaharan-lang-stub