Kumam dialect
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Kumam is a language of the Southern Lwoo group[1] spoken by the Kumam people of Uganda. It is estimated that the Kumam dialect has 82 percent lexical similarity with the Acholi dialect, 81 percent with the Lango dialect.[2]
Phonology
Consonants
Gemination can occur due to morphological processes, for example del 'skin' + -ná → dellá 'my skin'.[1]
Vowels
Kumam has ten vowels, with a vowel harmony system based on presence or absence of advanced tongue root (ATR).[1]
Vowels have no distinction in length, except due to some morphological processes, for instance compensatory lengthening that occurs when applying the transitive infinitive suffix -nɔ: ted- 'cook' + -ne → *ted-do → teedo 'to cook'.[1]
Tone
There exist six tones: low, high, falling, rising, downstep high and double downstep high.[1]
| Tone | Transcription |
|---|---|
| low | [à] |
| high | [á] |
| falling | [â] |
| rising | [ǎ] |
| downstep high | [!á] |
| double downstep high | [!!á] |
Tone sandhi
Kumam exhibits tone sandhi in two ways. The first is the spreading of high tonemes rightwards to the following words beginning with a low tonemes, as in ɑbúké 'eyelash' + waŋ 'eye' → abúké wâŋ 'eyelash'. The second is when a floating high toneme is followed by a word beginning in a low toneme, where the floating tone is assigned to the following word and not the word bearing the floating tone: cogó 'bone' + rac 'bad' → cogo râc 'The bone is bad.'[1]
Grammar
Verbs
Valency
Transitive stems are constructed by applying the suffix -ɔ (yɛŋ 'be satisfied' → yɛŋ-ɔ 'satisfy'). A subset of transitive verbs can have the suffix -ɛ́rɛ́ applied to form what Hieda calls a 'middle form' (nɛ́n-ɔ → nɛ́!nɛ́rɛ́ 'be seen').[1]
Basic lexicon
Hello – yoga
How are you? –Itiye benyo (singular), Itiyenu benyo (plural)
Fine, and you? – Atiye ber, arai bon yin?
Fine – Atiye ber or just ber
What is your name? – Nying in en Ngai?
My name is ... – Nying ango en ...
Name --- Nying
Nice to see you. --- Apwoyo Neno in (also: Apwoyo Neno wun)
See you again --- Oneno bobo
Book – Itabo
Because – Pi Ento
The first sentence in the bible can be translated as I ya gege, Rubanga ocweo wi polo kede piny ("In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth" ).