Koalib language

Koalib
Rere
Spoken in Sudan
Region Nuba Hills
Ethnicity Koalib, Turum, Umm Heitan
Native speakers 44,000  (1984)
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 kib

Koalib (also called Kwalib, Abri, Lgalige, Nirere, and Rere) is a Niger–Congo language in the Heiban family spoken in the Sudan.[1] The Koalib Nuba, Turum, and Umm Heitan ethnic groups speak this language.

It is written using the Latin alphabet,[1] but includes some unusual characters. It shares a tailed R (Ɽ) with other Sudanese languages, and uses a letter resembling the at sign (@) in writing Arabic loanwords. The Unicode Standard includes R WITH TAIL at code points U+027D (lowercase) and U+2C64 (uppercase), but the Unicode Consortium declined to encode the at sign separately as an orthographic letter.[2] However, SIL International maintains a registry of Private Use Area code points in which U+F247 represents LATIN SMALL LETTER AT, and U+F248 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER AT.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Ethnologue report for language code: kib, retrieved on Apr. 12, 2010.
  2. ^ Constable, Peter, and Lorna A. Priest (Oct. 12, 2009) SIL Corporate PUA Assignments 5.2a. SIL International. pp. 59-60. Retrieved on Apr. 12, 2010.
  3. ^ Charis SIL font documentation, retrieved on Apr. 12, 2010.