Nyole (also LoNyole, Lunyole, Nyuli) is a Bantu language spoken by the
Banyole in
Butaleja District,
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
. There is 61% lexical similarity with a related but different
Nyole language in Kenya.
Phonology
Consonants
Nyole has series of voiceless, voiced, and
prenasalized stops. is
labio-velar.
Vowels
Historical changes
Nyole has an interesting development from
Proto
Proto or PROTO may refer to:
Language
* Proto-, an English prefix meaning "first"
Media
* ''Proto'' (magazine), an American science magazine
* Radio Proto in Cyprus
Music
* ''Proto'' (Holly Herndon album), 2019
* ''Proto'' (Leo O'Kelly ...
-Bantu *p → Nyole . Schadeberg (1989) connects this
sound change
A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chang ...
to
rhinoglottophilia
In linguistics, rhinoglottophilia refers to the connection between laryngeal (glottal) and nasal articulations. The term was coined by James A. Matisoff in 1975.
There is a connection between the acoustic production of laryngeals and nasals, as ...
, where the sound change developed first as → → . Then, given the acoustic similarity of and
breathy voice
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
to
nasalization
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
, the sound change progressed as → → . The velar place of articulation development is due to velar nasals being the least perceptible of the nasals and its marginal status in (pre-)Nyole and other Bantu languages. In closely related neighboring languages, *p developed variously into or or was deleted.
This historical development results in so-called "crazy" alternations, like resulting in as in the following:
: n-ŋuliira ("hear" stem form) : puliira "I hear"
: n-ŋumula ("rest" stem form) : pumula "I rest"
In the above two words, when the first person singular subject prefix is added to the stem starting with , the initial consonant surfaces as . In other forms (like "to hear" and "to rest"), the original stem-initial can be seen.
Writing System
See also
*
Luhya language
References
* Eastman, Carol M. (1972). Lunyole of the Bamenya, ''JAL'', ''11'' (3), 63-78.
* Morris, H. F. (1963). A note on Lunyole. ''Uganda Journal'', ''27'', 127-134.
* Schadeberg, Thilo C. (1989). The velar nasal in Nyole (E. 35). ''Annales Aequatoria'', ''10'', 169-179.
Available online.
{{Authority control
Languages of Uganda
Luhya language