| Acholi | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acoli, Shuli, Gang, Lwo | ||||
| Spoken in | Uganda, South Sudan | |||
| Ethnicity | Acholi people | |||
| Native speakers | 1.22 million (2002) | |||
| Language family |
Nilo-Saharan?
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| Dialects |
Labwor
Nyakwai
Dhopaluo (Chope)
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-2 | ach | |||
| ISO 639-3 | ach | |||
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Acholi (also Acoli, Akoli, Acooli, Atscholi, Shuli, Gang, Lwoo, Lwo, Lok Acoli, Dok Acoli) is a language primarily spoken by the Acholi people in the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, a region known as Acholiland in northern Uganda. Acholi is also spoken in the southern part of the Opari District of South Sudan. As of 1996 there were reported approximately 773,800 Acholi speakers in the world. However this has gradually grown to over 800,000. Song of Lawino and its sequel, Song of Ocol, well known among African literature, were written in Acholi by Okot p'Bitek.
Acholi is one of the Luo languages, of the Western Nilotic branch of Nilo-Saharan. Acholi, Alur and Lango have between 84 and 90 per cent of their vocabulary in common[1] and thus are mutually intelligible.
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Acholi has vowel harmony: all vowels in a word have to belong to a single class (e.g. [kojo] the cold vs. [kɔjɔ] to separate). There are two sets of five vowels, distinguished by the feature [+/-ATR].
| . | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | ɒ |
| . | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Acholi is a tonal language. Thus, some words may be distinguished by tone alone, e.g. bèl (low) 'wrinkled' vs. bél (high) 'corn' and kàl (low) 'place enclosed by a palisade' vs. kál (high) 'millet'. Tone furthermore plays a role in verb conjugation.