Gusii language

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Gusii EkeGusii
Spoken in:	Kenya
Region:	Western Kenya, Gusii district
Total speakers:	1,5 million
Language family:	Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Narrow Bantu Central Gusii
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`bnt`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`guz`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

The Gusii language (also known as Kisii or Ekegusii) is a Bantu language spoken in the Kisii district in western Kenya (between the Kavirondo Gulf of Lake Victoria and the border with Tanzania). It is spoken by the Gusii people, numbering about 1.5 million (SIL/Ethnologue 1994). Many Gusii are bilingual in Luo.

1 Classification
2 Sounds
- 2.1 Vowels
- 2.2 Consonants
3 Bibliography
4 External links
- 4.1 Listening
5 See also

[edit] Classification

Gusii is classified as a Central Bantu language, part of the subfamily of Kuria languages labeled E.10 in Guthrie's zonal classification of Bantu languages. Related languages are found mainly in Tanzania, and include Ware, Ikizu, Ikoma, and Kuria.

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Vowels

Gusii has seven vowels. Vowel length is contrastive, i.e. the words 'bór' to miss and 'bóór' to say are distinguished by vowel length only.

Phonetic inventory of vowels in Gusii
.	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

[edit] Consonants

In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of ‘y’ for IPA /j/, common in African orthographies. When symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.

Phonetic inventory of consonants in Gusii, IPA notation.
.	bilabial	alveo-palatal	palatal	velar
plosive	p b	t	c (c)	k g
fricative		s
affricate			cç (c)
nasal	m	n	ɲ (ny)	ŋ (ng')
trill		r
approximant	w		j (y)

The following morphophonological alternations occur:

n+r = nd
n+b = mb
n+g = ŋg
n+k = ŋk
n+m = mm

[edit] Bibliography

Cammenga, Jelle (2002) Phonology and morphology of Ekegusii: a Bantu language of Kenya. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Whiteley, Wilfred H. (1956) A practical introduction to Gusii. Dar es Salaam/Nairobi/Kampala: East African Literature Bureau.
Whiteley, Wilfred H. (1960) The tense system of Gusii. Kampala: East African Institute of Social Research.
Whiteley, Wilfred H. (1974) Language in Kenia. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.