Lendu language

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lendu
Balendru
Native to
Congo (DRC)
EthnicityLendu, Hema, Alur, Okebu
Native speakers
(760,000, including Ndrulo cited 1996)[1]
?
Dialects
  • Badha
Language codes
ISO 639-3led
Glottologlend1245
Linguasphere03-BAD

The Lendu language is a

Ituri Region of Orientale Province. It is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu and the Hema was the basis of the Ituri conflict.[2]

Besides the Balendru, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu. In Uganda, the Lendu tribe live in the districts of Nebbi and Zombo districts, northwest of Lake Albert.[citation needed]

Names

Ethnologue gives Bbadha as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists Badha as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languages, available from his website and dated 2012, lists Lendu/Badha.

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Near-close ɪ ʊ
Mid ɛ ə ɔ
Open a

Consonants

Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Labial-
velar 		Glottal
central sibilant
Nasal m
n
 		ɲ
Stop/
Affricate
 voiceless p
t
 		t͡s t͡ʃ k k͡p ʔ
voiced b
d
 		d͡z d͡ʒ ɟ ɡ ɡ͡b
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᶮd͡ʒ ᵑɡ
vl. implosive ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊
vd. implosive ɓ ɗ ʄ
Fricative voiceless f θ s ʃ h
voiced v ð z ʒ
prenasal ⁿz
Rhotic
r
Approximant plain
l
 		j w
glottalized ʼw

Implosives

Demolin (1995)

voiceless implosives, /ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊/ (/ƥ ƭ ƈ/). However, Goyvaerts (1988)[4] had described these as creaky-voiced implosives /ɓ̰ ɗ̰ ʄ̰/, as in Hausa, contrasting with a series of modally voiced implosives /ɓ ɗ ʄ/ as in Kalabari, and Ladefoged judges that this seems to be a more accurate description.[5]

References

  1. ^ Lendu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "AFRICA | 101 Last Tribes - Lendu people". www.101lasttribes.com. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  3. ^ Demolin, Didier. 1995. The phonetics and phonology of glottalized consonants in Lendu. In Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia (eds.), Phonology and Phonetic Evidence. Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV, 368-385. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  4. ^ Goyvaerts, Didier L. 1988. Glottalized Consonants a New Dimension. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 3. 97-102. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  5. ISBN 0-631-19815-6
    .
  • Kutsch-Lojenga, Constance. 1989. The Secret behind Vowelless Syllables in Lendu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 11. 115–126. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  • Tucker, Archibald N. 1940. Lendu. In The Eastern Sudanic Languages: Volume I, 380–418. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Trifkovic, Mirjana. 1977. Tone preserving vowel reduction in Lendu. Studies in African Linguistics 8. 121–125.
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