The Lendu language is a

Central Sudanic 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 an ...

language spoken by the Balendru, an ethno-linguistic agriculturalist group residing in eastern

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 ...

in the area west and northwest of Lake Albert, specifically the Ituri Region of

Orientale Province Orientale Province ( French: ''Province orientale'', "Eastern province") is one of the former provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its predecessors the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo. It went through a series of boundary ...

. It is one of the most populous of the

Central Sudanic languages 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 ...

. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu was the basis of the

Ituri conflict The Ituri conflict (french: Guerre d'Ituri) is an ongoing conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While the two groups had ...

. Besides the Balendru, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu.

Names

''Ethnologue'' gives ''Bbadha'' as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists ''Badha'' as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languages
available from his website
and dated 2012, lists ''Lendu/Badha''.

Phonology

Demolin (1995) posits that Lendu has

voiceless implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. Rou ...

s, (). However, Goyvaerts (1988) had described these as creaky-voiced implosives , as in

Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also ...

, contrasting with a series of modally voiced implosives as in Kalabari, and Ladefoged judges that this seems to be a more accurate description.

References

{{Authority control Central Sudanic languages Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo