Kirundi

Kirundi (), also known as Rundi, is a Bantu language and the national language of Burundi. It is mutually intelligible with Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda, and the two form parts of the Rwanda-Rundi dialect continuum spoken in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Kenya.

Kirundi is natively spoken by the Hutu (including the Bakiga), Tutsi, Twa, and the Hima people; other related ethnicities have also adopted Kirundi as their mother tongue. Neighbouring dialects of Kirundi are mutually intelligible with Ha, a language spoken in western Tanzania.

Kirundi is one of the languages where Meeussen's rule, a rule describing a certain pattern of tonal change in Bantu languages, is active.

In 2020, the Rundi Academy was established to help standardize and promote Kirundi.

File:Bicycles in Burundi.jpg

The Kirundi text on the back of the truck warns cyclists not to hold on to it.

Phonology

Consonants

Although the literature on Rundi agrees on 5 vowels, the number of consonants can vary anywhere from 19 to 26 consonants. The table below is compiled from a survey of academic acceptance of Rundi consonants.

		Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink
	voiced	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Affricate		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink
	voiced	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Approximant					Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Flap			Template:IPAlink
Trill			Template:IPAlink

Vowels

The table below gives the vowel sounds of Rundi.

	Front	Back
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open	Template:IPA link

All five vowels occur in long and short forms. The distinction is phonemic.

Tone

Rundi is a tonal language. There are two essential tones in Rundi: high and low (or H and L). Since Rundi has phonemic distinction on vowel length, when a long vowel changes from a low tone to a high tone it is marked as a rising tone. When a long vowel changes from a high tone to a low tone, it is marked as a falling tone.

Rundi is often used in phonology to illustrate examples of Meeussen's rule In addition, it has been proposed that tones can shift by a metrical or rhythmic structure. Some authors have expanded these more complex features of the tonal system noting that such properties are highly unusual for a tone system.

Phonotactics

Syllable structure in Rundi is considered to be CV, that is having no clusters, no coda consonants, and no complex vowel nuclei. It has been proposed that sequences that are CVV in the surface realization are actually CV in the underlying deep structure, with the consonant coalescing with the first vowel.

Consonant harmony

Rundi has been shown to have properties of consonant harmony particularly when it comes to sibilants. Meeussen described this harmony in his essay and it is investigated further by others. One example of this harmony is triggered by and and targets the set of and in preceding adjacent stem syllables.

Orthography

Letter(s)	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	m	n	ny	o	p	pf	r	s	sh	t	ts	u	v	w	y	z	zh
IPA

Official use

File:Church of the Pater Noster rn.jpg

The Lord's Prayer in Kirundi (Church of the Pater Noster)

Kirundi was recognized an official language in Burundi by the 1962 Constitution of the Kingdom of Burundi. In accordance with the constitution, many Burundian government orders, especially those printed in the Bulletin Officiel du Burundi from 1962 to 1963, were written in both French and Kirundi. After the constitution was suspended in 1966, Kirundi remained a de facto official language in the country, though its use in government documents declined. In 1972, Kirundi was adopted as the official language of instruction in Burundian primary schools.

External links

• Online Kirundi/English dictionary, revised
• Free English-Kirundi Dictionary
• Free Kirundi selfstudy course
• Free Kirundi grammar study book
• PanAfrican L10n page on Kirundi...
• Learning Kirundi (in Spanish)
• Online Kirundi/English dictionary
• USA Foreign Service Institute Kirundi basic course