Kirundi, also known as Rundi, 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 ...
spoken by some 9 million people in
Burundi
Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
and adjacent parts of
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
,
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 ...
, the
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 ...
,
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 ...
, as well as in Kenya. It is the
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of Burundi. Kirundi is
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with
Kinyarwanda
Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is spoken in Rwanda and adjacent parts of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda (where there ...
, an official language of
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
, and the two form part of the wider
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
known as
Rwanda-Rundi
Rwanda-Rundi is a group of Bantu languages, specifically a dialect continuum, spoken in Central Africa. Two dialects, Kirundi and Kinyarwanda, have been standardized as national languages of Burundi and Rwanda respectively. These neighbouring d ...
.
[Ethnologue, 15th ed.]
Kirundi is natively spoken by the
Hutu
The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the prin ...
, including
Bakiga
Kiga people, or ''Abakiga'' ("people of the mountains"), are a Bantu ethnic group native to south western Uganda and northern Rwanda.
History Pre-colonial period
The Kiga people are believed to have originated in Rwanda as mentioned in one of ...
and other related ethnicities, as well as
Tutsi
The Tutsi (), or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi (the other two being the largest Bantu ethnic grou ...
,
Twa
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with ...
and
Hima among others have adopted the language. Neighbouring dialects of Kirundi are
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with
Ha, a language spoken in western
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 ...
.
Kirundi is one of the languages where
Meeussen's rule Meeussen's rule is a special case of tone reduction in Bantu languages. The tonal alternation it describes is the lowering, in some contexts, of the last tone of a pattern of two adjacent High tones (HH), resulting in the pattern HL. The phenomenon ...
, a rule describing a certain pattern of tonal change in Bantu languages, is active.
In 2020, the Rundi Academy was established to help standardize and promote Kirundi.
Phonology
Consonants
Although the literature on Rundi agrees on 5 vowels, the number of consonants can vary anywhere from 19 to 26 consonants. The table below is compiled from a survey of academic acceptance of Rundi consonants.
Vowels
The table below gives the vowel sounds of Rundi.
All five vowels occur in
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
and
short
Short may refer to:
Places
* Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon
* Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
* Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place
People
* Short (surname)
* List of people known as ...
forms. The distinction is
phonemic
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
.
Tone
Rundi is a
tonal language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...
. There are two essential tones in Rundi: high and low (or H and L). Since Rundi has phonemic distinction on vowel length, when a long vowel changes from a low tone to a high tone it is marked as a rising tone. When a long vowel changes from a high tone to a low tone, it is marked as a falling tone.
Rundi is often used in phonology to illustrate examples of
Meeussen's rule Meeussen's rule is a special case of tone reduction in Bantu languages. The tonal alternation it describes is the lowering, in some contexts, of the last tone of a pattern of two adjacent High tones (HH), resulting in the pattern HL. The phenomenon ...
In addition, it has been proposed that tones can shift by a metrical or rhythmic structure. Some authors have expanded these more complex features of the tonal system noting that such properties are highly unusual for a tone system.
Phonotactics
Syllable structure in Rundi is considered to be CV, that is having no clusters, no coda consonants, and no complex vowel nuclei. It has been proposed that sequences that are CVV in the surface realization are actually CV in the underlying
deep structure Deep structure and surface structure (also D-structure and S-structure although those abbreviated forms are sometimes used with distinct meanings) are concepts used in linguistics, specifically in the study of syntax in the Chomskyan tradition of t ...
, with the consonant coalescing with the first vowel.
Consonant harmony
Rundi has been shown to have properties of
consonant harmony
Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation, akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony.
Examples
In Athabaskan languages
One of the more common harmony processes is ''coronal harm ...
particularly when it comes to sibilants. Meeussen described this harmony in his essay and it is investigated further by others.
[Ntihirageza 1993] One example of this harmony is triggered by and and targets the set of and in preceding adjacent stem syllables.
Official use
Kirundi was recognized an
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
in Burundi by the 1962
Constitution of the Kingdom of Burundi. In accordance with the constitution, many Burundian government orders, especially those printed in the ''Bulletin Officiel du Burundi'' from 1962 to 1963, were written in both French and Kirundi. After the constitution was suspended in 1966, Kirundi remained a ''de facto'' official language in the county, though its use in government documents declined. In 1972 Kirundi was adopted as the official language of instruction in Burundian primary schools.
Notes
References
* Broselow, E. & Niyondagara, A. (1990
"Feature geometry of Kirundi palatalization" ''Studies in the Linguistic Sciences'' 20: 71-88.
* de Samie. (2009) ''Dictionnaire Francais-Kirundi''. L'Harmattan. Paris.
* Goldsmith, J. & Sabimana, F. (1989) ''The Kirundi Verb''. Modèles en tonologie. Editions du CNRS. Paris.
* Meeussen, A.E. (1959) ''Essai de grammaire Rundi''. Annales du Musée Royal du Congo Belge, Série Sciences Humaines – Linguistique, vol. 24. Tervuren.
* Myers, S. (1987) ''Tone and the structure of words in Shona''. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Garland Press. New York.
* Ntihirageza, J. (1993) ''Kirundi Palatization and Sibilant Harmony : Implications for Feature Geometry''. Master thesis, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois.
* Philippson, G. (2003) ''Tone reduction vs. metrical attraction in the evolution of Eastern Bantu tone systems''. INALCO. Paris.
* Sagey, E. (1986)
''The Representation of Features and Relations in Non-Linear Phonology'' Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.
*
*
* Zorc, R. D. & Nibagwire, L. (2007) ''Kinyarwanda and Kirundi Comparative Grammar''. Dunwoody Press. Hyattsville.
External links
Online Kirundi/English dictionary, revisedFree English-Kirundi DictionaryFree Kirundi selfstudy courseFree Kirundi grammar study bookPanAfrican L10n page on Kirundi...Learning Kirundi(in Spanish)
Online Kirundi/English dictionaryUSA Foreign Service Institute Kirundi basic course
{{Authority control
Languages of Burundi
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Languages of Tanzania
Languages of Uganda
Rwanda-Rundi languages