| Alur | |
|---|---|
| Lur | |
| Spoken in | Orientale Province (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Uganda |
| Ethnicity | Alur |
| Native speakers | 1.4 million (2001–2002) |
| Language family |
Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | alz |
Alur is spoken in northwestern Uganda and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo by the Alur people.
Dialects
Vowels
Alur has 9 vowels.
| . | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
Note that all the vowels are paired except for /a/. Though all nine vowels are phonemic, each pair of vowels is represented by a single letter in the orthography:
/u/ and /ʊ/ are represented by 'u'.
/o/ and /ɔ/ are represented by 'o'.
/i/ and /ɪ/ are represented by 'i'.
/e/ and /ɛ/ are represented by 'e'.
Consonants
Alur has 23 consonants.
| Labial | Labio-dental | Inderdental | Alveolar | Palato-Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Plosive | p b | t̟ d̟ | t d | k ɡ | |||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | h | ||||||
| Affricate | tʃ dʒ | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||||
The Alur language has no officially accepted orthography. However, informal conventions have been established in written materials and road signs.
First, there is usually no written tonal distinction. Second, the phonemic distinction between /ŋ/ and /ng/ is occasionally reflected in the orthography, with /ŋ/ represented by 'ŋ' and /ng/ represented by 'ng'. However, /ŋ/ is also frequently written as 'ng', confusing it orthographically with /ng/.
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