Fuliiru language
Fuliiru | |
---|---|
Native to | Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Ethnicity | Fuliiru |
Native speakers | 400,000 (2012)[1] |
Language family | Niger–Congo?
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Either:flr – Fuliirujob – Joba (Vira) |
Glottolog | fuli1240 Fuliirujoba1238 Joba |
Guthrie code | JD.63,631 [2] |
Fuliiru (Furiiru, Kifuliiru, Fulero) is a Great Lakes Bantu language spoken by the Fuliiru people (Bafuliiru), also known as the Fuliru or Fulero, who live north and west of the town of Uvira in Uvira Territory, South Kivu province in the far eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is closely related to Kinyindu.[3]
Phonology[]
Consonants[]
The table below gives the consonant set of Fuliiru.[3][4]
Labial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Laryngeal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||||
voiced | d | g | ||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | |||
voiced | v | z | ʒ | |||||
Prenasalized plosive | mb | nd | ŋg | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
Liquid | l/ɾ | |||||||
Approximant | β | j | (w)[5] |
Several sounds change when preceded by a nasal: voiceless sounds become voiced, and /β/ and /h/ are realized as [b].
The phoneme /n/ assimilates to the place of consonants that follow it: it can be realized as [m], [ɱ], [n], [ɲ], or [ŋ].
The phoneme /l/ is realized as [d] after /n/, as [ɾ] after the front vowels /e/ and /i/, and as [l] elsewhere. The phoneme /ɾ/ is likewise realized as [d] after /n/, but as [ɾ] elsewhere.
Vowels[]
The table below gives the vowel sounds of Fuliiru.[3]
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
High | i | u |
Mid | e | o |
Low | a |
All five vowels occur in long and short forms, a distinction that is phonemically distinctive. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.
Tone[]
Like most Bantu languages, Fuliiru is tonal, with a two-way contrast between high and low tones. Morphemes can be underlyingly high (H), low (L), or toneless. Phonetically, high, low, mid, and falling tones can all occur; mid tones are the realization of an underlying LH sequence, and falling tones are the realization of an underlying HL sequence or an utterance-final H tone.
References[]
- ^ Fuliiru at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Joba (Vira) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) - ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Van Otterloo, Karen (2011). The Kifuliiru Language: Volume 1. Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 978-1-55671-261-6.
- ^ Van Otterloo, Roger (2011). The Kifuliiru Language: Volume 2. Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 978-1-55671-270-8.
- ^ This sound is very rare in Fuliiru, and only occurs after other consonants or as the result of a /u/ becoming a glide.
- Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Rwanda-Rundi languages
- Bantu language stubs
- Democratic Republic of the Congo stubs
- African ethnic group stubs