| Also Known As: Runyarwanda,Ruana,Ikinyarwanda,Orunyarwanda,Kinyarwanda,Urunyaruanda,Ruanda,Rwanda
Description:
Kinyarwanda (also known simply as Rwanda) is a Bantu language spoken primarily in Rwanda, where it is one of the official languages of the country, as well as in southern Uganda and in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kinyarwanda is mutually intelligible with Kirundi, an official language of Burundi.
Kinyarwanda is a tonal language.
'ki' and 'ke' can be pronounced interchangeably as [ki] and [ke] or [chi] and [che] according to speaker's preference
An '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:
Note that these are all sequences; /bɡ/, for..... full article at Wikipedia |
Location of Rwanda Language Speakers
<googlemap zoom="1" width=400 height=300 lat="3.538987" lon="23.975379" type="map">
9.102097, 18.281250, Africa
-2.024122, 29.669509, Rwanda</googlemap>
|