Kinyarwanda language

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Kinyarwanda (also sometimes known simply as Rwanda or Ruanda) is a Bantu language spoken primarily in Rwanda, where it is nearly universal and one of the official languages of the country. It is also spoken in southern Uganda. Kinyarwanda is mutually intelligible with Kirundi, an official language of Burundi.^[]

Phonology

Consonants

The table below gives the consonant set of Kinyarwanda, grouping voiceless and voiced consonants together in a cell where appropriate, in that order.

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d		c ɟ	k ɡ
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ				h
Affricate			ts	tʃ
Nasal	m		n		ɲ	ŋ
Approximant					j		w
Tap or Flap			ɾ

Vowels

The table below gives the vowel sounds of Kinyarwanda.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open	a

All five vowels occur in long and short forms. The distinction is phonemically distinctive. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.

Tone

Kinyarwanda is a tonal language.

Orthography

A a	B b	C c	Cy cy	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h	I i
J j	Jy jy	K k	L l	M m	N n	Nk nk	Nt nt	Ny ny	O o
P p	R r	S s	Sh sh	T t	U u	V v	W w	Y y	Z z

The sequences 'ki' and 'ke' may be pronounced interchangeably as [ki] and [ke] or [chi] and [che] according to speaker's preference.

The letters 'a', 'e', or 'i' at the end of a word followed by a word starting with a vowel often follows a pattern of omission (observed in the following excerpt of the Rwandan anthem) in common speech, though the orthography remains the same. For example, Reka tukurate tukuvuge ibigwi wowe utubumbiye hamwe twese Abanyarwanda uko watubyaye berwa, sugira, singizwa iteka. would be pronounced as "Reka tukurate tukuvug' ibigwi wow' utubumiye hamwe twes' abanyarwand' uko watubyaye berwa, sugira singizw' iteka."

In the colloquial language, there are some discrepancies from orthographic Cw and Cy. Specifically, rw (as in Rwanda) is often pronounced /ɾɡw/. The most obvious differences are the following:

Orthog.	Pron.
rw	/ɾɡw/
pw	/pk/
bw	/bɡ/
mw	/mŋ/
my	/mɲ/
tw	/tkw/
dw	/dɡw /
cw	/tʃkw/
by	/bdʒ/

Note that these are all sequences; /bɡ/, for example, is not labio-velar /b͡ɡ/. Even when Rwanda is pronounced /ɾwanda/, the onset is a sequence.

Grammar

Nouns

Kinyarwanda has ten noun classes pairs:

	singular	plural	type of words
I	(u)mu-	(a)ba-	humans
II	(u)mu-	(i)mi-
III	(i)(ri)-	(a)ma-
IV	(i)ki- or (i)gi-	(i)bi-
V	(i)n-	(i)n-
VI	(u)ru-	(i)n-
VII	(a)ka-	(u)tu-
VIII	(u)bu-	(u)bu-
IX	(u)ku-	(a)ma-
X	(a)ha-	(a)ha-

When preceded by a demonstrative, the vowel prefix is dropped. (e.g. umu- → mu-). Class I is used for words representing humans.

Verbs

All Kinyarwanda verb infinitives begin with gu- or ku- (morphed into kw- before vowels). To conjugate, the infinitive prefix is removed and replaced with a prefix agreeing with the subject. Then a tense infix can be inserted.

	singular	singular before vowels	plural	plural before vowels
I	a-	y-	ba-	b-
II	u-	w-	i-	y-
III	ri-	ry-	a-	y-
IV	ki-	cy-	bi-	by-
V	i-	y-	zi-	z-
VI	ru-	rw-	zi-	z-
VII	ka-	k-	tu-	tw-
VIII	bu-	bw-	bu-	bw-
IX	ku-	kw-	a-	y-
X	ha-	h-	ha-	h-

The prefixes for pronouns are as follows:

'I' = n-
'you' (sing.) = u-
'he/she' = y-/a- (i.e. the singular Class I prefix above)
'we' = tu-
'you' (pl.) = mu-
'they' (human) = ba- (i.e. the singular Class I prefix above)

Tense markers include the following.

Present ('I do'): - (no infix)
Present progressive ('I am doing'): -ra- (morphs to -da- when preceded by n)
Future ('I will do'): -za-
Continuous progressive ('I'm still doing'): -racya-

Example translations
Yego	Yes
Oya	No
Uvuga icyongereza?	Do you speak English?
Bite?	What's Up?
Mwaramutse	Hi/Good Morning
Amata	Milk
Ejo	Yesterday
Ejo hazaza	Tomorrow
Nzaza ejo	I will come tomorrow
Ubu	Now
Ubufaransa	France
Ubwongereza	England
Amerika	America
Ubudage	Germany
Ububirigi	Belgium

The past tense can be formed by using the present and present progressive infixes and modifying the aspect marker suffix.

Notes

References

External links

Kinyarwanda.net Integrated Kinyarwanda and English dictionary and grammar reference
Introduction to Rwanda phonology
PanAfrican L10n page on Rwanda–Rundi (has links to dictionaries)
Rwanda-English Dictionary
[1] www.speakrwanda.com Kinyarwanda audio lessons and phrasebook for travellers
Kinyarwanda Book HTML Transcription of the Book "Kinyarwanda Lessons" by Betty Ellen Cox and Gakuba Faustin

Wkipedia Article on Kinyarwanda language

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