| Also Known As: Nilotic Kavirondo,Kavirondo,Kavirondo Luo,Dholuo
Description:
Dholuo (also known as Luo; IPA with tone marks [d̪ólúô]) belongs to the Luo grouping within the Western Nilotic grouping of the Nilo-Saharan language family. It is spoken by the Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania, numbering about 3 million, who occupy parts of the eastern shore of Lake Victoria and areas south of there. It is used for broadcasts on KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, formerly the Voice of Kenya) and Radio Ramogi. Dholuo is closely related to Lango, Acholi and Dhopadhola of Uganda. It is not to be confused with the fellow Western Nilotic language Luwo (spoken in Sudan); in addition, both of the aforementioned languages Lango and Acholi have the alternative names Lwo or Lwoo.
Dholuo has two sets of five vowels, distinguished by the feature [+/-ATR].
In the table of consonants below, orthographic symbols are included between parentheses if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the following: the use of ‘y’ for IPA [j], common in African orthographies; 'th, dh' are plosives, not fricatives as in Swahili spelling (but phoneme /d̪/ can fricativize intervocalically). When symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
Dholuo is a..... full article at Wikipedia |
