Kerewe, or Kerebe, is a Bantu language of

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 ...

, spoken on

Ukerewe Island Ukerewe is the fifth-largest lake island in the world. With an area of , it is also the largest island in Lake Victoria and the largest lake island in Africa. Ukerewe Island is located in the Ukerewe District of Mwanza Region in the great la ...

in Lake Victoria, the largest inland island in Africa. Kerewe phonology prohibits

vowel sequence In phonology, hiatus, diaeresis (), or dieresis describes the occurrence of two separate vowel sounds in adjacent syllables with no intervening consonant. When two vowel sounds instead occur together as part of a single syllable, the result is c ...

s: if a vowel sequence arises in the

underlying representation In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology in the field of linguistics, the underlying representation (UR) or underlying form (UF) of a word or morpheme is the abstract form that a word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phon ...

of a phrase, the sequence becomes either a long vowel or a

glide Glide may refer to: * Gliding flight, to fly without thrust Computing *Glide API, a 3D graphics interface *Glide OS, a web desktop *Glide (software), an instant video messenger *Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schr� ...

followed by a long vowel in the surface representation.

Literature

n December 1877 two Anglican missionaries Shergold Smith and Mr. O’Neill were martyred on Ukerewe Island by King Lukonge. In 1868 the Missionaries of Africa, known as the White Fathers (Pères Blancs) arrived at the Lake Victoria region in 1879, and at Ukerewe island in 1880. The first attempts at Bible translation into Kerewe were some Bible stories in 1899, liturgical Gospels in 1921 and 1937 and Gospel harmony in 1930. The New Testament was translated into Kerewe by French Canadian Padri Almas Simard (1907-1954) from the White Fathers, working with several native speakers. The translation received the Imprimatur on 4th October 1945 from Bishop Anton Oomen (1876-1957), Vicar Apostolic of Mwanza. It published as Omulago Muhya, (Kikahindurwa mu Kikerewe) at the White Fathers Mission Press in Bukerewe. It included headings, footnotes and cross-references.

References

* See My Language: A History of Bible Translation in East Africa by Aloo Osotsi Mojola published in 1999 Languages of Tanzania Great Lakes Bantu languages {{Bantu-lang-stub

Literature

See also

References