Kirundi

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Kirundi
Spoken in:	Burundi
Region:	Central Africa
Total speakers:	4.6 million
Language family:	Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Narrow Bantu Central Kirundi
Official status
Official language of:	Burundi
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	`rn`
ISO 639-2:	`run`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`run`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Kirundi (also written Rundi) is a Bantu language (D62 in Guthrie's classification) spoken by some 6 million people in Burundi and adjacent parts of Tanzania and Congo-Kinshasa, as well as in Uganda. 84% of the speakers are Hutu, 15% are Tutsi and 1% are Twa.

Kirundi is closely related to Kinyarwanda, the main language of neighbouring country Rwanda and to Giha, a language spoken in western Tanzania. Kirundi and Kinyarwanda are mutually intelligible.

The inhabitants of Rwanda and Burundi belong to three different ethnic groups: Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa (a pygmy people). The fact that these ethnic groups share the same language is assumed to be the result of the Bahutu outnumbering the latter two groups (see Bahutu for a more complete historical perspective).

Kirundi is frequently cited as a language where Meeussen's rule, a rule describing a certain pattern of tonal change in Bantu languages, is active.

Example translations
Ego	Yes
Oya	No
Uravuga icongereza?	Do you speak English?
Bite?	What's Up?
Mwaramutse	Hi/Good Morning
Ikirundi n'ikinyarwanda bisa nka igi czek n'igi slovak	Kirundi and Kinyarwanda are closely related like Czech and Slovak
Amata	Milk
Ejo	Yesterday
Eejo°	Tomorrow
Nzoza ejo/Nzoz'ejo	I will come tomorrow
Ubu	Now
Faransa/Ubufaransa	France
Ngereza/Ubwongereza	England
Leta z'ubumwe z'amerika	United States of America
Ubudagi	Germany
Ububirigi	Belgium
°N.B. eejo is pronounced the same as ejo: the other e is written for differentiation.