Rwanda language

The Rwanda language, commonly seen in its native form of Kinyarwanda and occasionally as Ruanda, is a Bantu language spoken primarily in Rwanda, where it is nearly universal and one of the official languages of the country, as well as in southern Uganda. Rwanda is mutually intelligible with Rundi, an official language of Burundi.^[1]

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.

Vowels

The table below gives the vowel sounds of Kinyarwanda.

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

Rwanda is a tonal language.

Orthography

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

Rwanda has ten noun classes pairs:

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

Verbs

All Rwanda 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.

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-

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

Notes

References

• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed. ed.). Dallas: SIL. http://www.ethnologue.com/. 
• Habumuremyi, Emmanuel et al. (2006). IRIZA-STARTER 2006: The 1st Kinyarwanda-English and English-Kinyarwanda Dictionary. Kigali: Rural ICT-Net. 
• Jouannet, Francis (ed.) (1983) (in French). Le Kinyarwanda, langue bantu du Rwanda. Paris: SELAF. 
• Kimenyi, Alexandre (1980). A Relational Grammar of Kinyarwanda. University of California Press. 

External links

• Kinyarwanda Wiki for learners of the Rwanda language
• Kumva Open-source online Rwanda and English dictionary
• 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