Gciriku or Dciriku (Also Diriku, Dirico, Manyo or Rumanyo), is a
Bantu language spoken by 305,000 people along the
Okavango River
The Okavango River (formerly spelled Okovango or Okovanggo), Also known as the Cubango River, is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for . It begins at an elevation of in ...
in
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
,
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...
and
Angola
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. 24,000 people speak Gciriku in
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
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, according to
Ethnologue. It was first known in the west via the Vagciriku, who had migrated from the main Vamanyo area and spoke Rugciriku, a dialect of Rumanyo. The name ''Gciriku'' (Dciriku, Diriku) remains common in the literature, but within Namibia the name ''Rumanyo'' has been revived. The Mbogedu dialect is extinct; Maho (2009) lists it as a distinct language, and notes that the names 'Manyo' and 'Rumanyo' are inappropriate for it.
It is one of several Bantu languages of the Okavango which have
click consonants, as in ('bed'), ('flower'), and ('tortoise'). These clicks, of which there are half a dozen (c, gc, ch, and prenasalized nc and nch), are generally all pronounced with a
dental articulation, but there is broad variation between speakers. They are especially common in place names and in words for features of the landscape, reflecting their sources in
Khwe and
Ju, two members of the
Khoisan language family. Many of the click words in Gciriku, including those in native Bantu vocabulary, are shared with
Kwangali,
Mbukushu Mbukushu is a traditional Kavango kingdom in what is today Namibia. Its people speak the Mbukushu language
Mbukushu or Thimbukushu is a Bantu language spoken by 45,000 people along the Okavango River in Namibia, where it is a national language, ...
, and
Fwe.
References
External links
Gciriku vocabulary
{{Authority control
Kavango languages
Languages of Angola
Languages of Botswana
Languages of Namibia
Click languages