Kinyarwanda

Template:Infobox ethnonym

Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and the national language of Rwanda. It is a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is also spoken in adjacent parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Uganda, where the dialect is known as Ikinyakore, Rufumbira, or Urufumbira. Kinyarwanda is universal among the native population of Rwanda and is mutually intelligible with Kirundi, the national language of neighbouring Burundi. Kinyabwishya and Kinyamulenge are mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of neighbouring DR Congo.

In 2010, the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC) was established to help promote and sustain Kinyarwanda. The organization attempted an orthographic reform in 2014, but it was met with pushback due to their perceived top-down and political nature, among other reasons.

Geographic distribution

Kinyarwanda is spoken in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

Phonology

Consonants

The table below gives the consonants of Kinyarwanda.

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink	(Template:IPAlink)
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPAlink1		Template:IPAlink		(Template:IPAlink)	Template:IPAlink
	voiced	(Template:IPAlink)		Template:IPAlink		(Template:IPAlink)	Template:IPAlink
Affricate	voiceless		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Fricative	voiceless		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
	voiced	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink			(Template:IPAlink)
Approximant						Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Rhotic				Template:IPAlink

1. is only found in loanwords.
2. Consonants in parentheses are allophones.

Vowels

The table below gives the vowel sounds of Kinyarwanda.

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

Tone

Kinyarwanda is a tonal language. Like many Bantu languages, it has a two-way contrast between high and low tones (low-tone syllables may be analyzed as toneless). The realization of tones in Kinyarwanda is influenced by a complex set of phonological rules.

Orthography

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

Except in a few morphological contexts, the sequences 'ki' and 'ke' may be pronounced interchangeably as and or and according to speaker's preference.

The letters Template:Grapheme at the end of a word followed by a word starting with a vowel often follows a pattern of omission in common speech (sandhi), though the orthography remains the same. Consider the following excerpt of the Rwandan anthem: would be pronounced as

There are some discrepancies in pronunciation from orthographic Cw and Cy. The glides strengthen to stops in consonant clusters. For example, (as in ) is normally pronounced . The differences are the following:

Orthography	Pronunciation
mw
nw
nyw	or
pw
fw
pfw
bw
vw
tw
tsw
cw
sw
shw
dw
zw
jw
rw
my
py
ty
sy
by
ndy
ry

These are all sequences; , for example, is not labial-velar Template:IPAblink. Even when is pronounced rather than , the onset is a sequence, not a labialized .

Grammar

Nouns

Kinyarwanda uses 16 of the Bantu noun classes. Sometimes these are grouped into 10 pairs so that most singular and plural forms of the same word are included in the same class. The table below shows the 16 noun classes and how they are paired in two commonly used systems.

Prefix	Classification			Number	Typical words	Example
	Bantu	Cox	???
umu-	1	1		singular	humans	umuntu – person
aba-	2			plural		abantu – people
umu-	3	2		singular	trees, shrubs and things that extend	umusozi – hill
imi-	4			plural		imisozi – hills
iri-	5	5	3	singular	things in quantities, liquids	iryinyo – tooth
ama-	6	5/8/9	3/8/9	plural (also substances)		amenyo – teeth
iki-	7	4		singular	generic, large, or abnormal things	ikintu – thing
ibi-	8			plural		ibintu – things
in-	9	3	5	singular	some plants, animals and household implements	inka – cow
in-	10	3/6	5/6	plural		inka – cows
uru-	11	6		singular	mixture, body parts	urugo – home
aka-	12	7		singular	diminutive forms of other nouns	akantu – little thing
utu-	13			plural		utuntu – little things
ubu-	14	8		n/a	abstract nouns, qualities or states	ubuntu – generosity
uku-	15	9		n/a	actions, verbal nouns and gerunds	ukuntu – means
aha-	16	10		n/a	places, locations	ahantu – place

Verbs

All Kinyarwanda verb infinitives begin with ku- (morphed into k(w)- before vowels, and into gu- before stems beginning with a voiceless consonant due to Dahl's Law). To conjugate, the infinitive prefix is removed and replaced with a prefix agreeing with the subject. Then a tense marker can be inserted.

	Singular			Plural
	Corresp. Noun Class	before consonants	before vowels	Corresp. Noun Class	before consonants	before vowels
1st person		n-/m-	n-		tu-/du-	tw-
2nd person		u-	w-		mu-	mw-
I	1	a-	y-	2	ba-	b-
II	3	u-	w-	4	i-	y-
III	5	ri-	ry-	6	a-	y-
IV	7	ki-	cy-	8	bi-	by-
V	9	i-	y-	10	zi-	z-
VI	11	ru-	rw-	10	zi-	z-
VII	12	ka-	k-	13	tu-	tw-
VIII	14	bu-	bw-	16	bu-	bw-
IX	15	ku-	k(w)-	16	a-	y-
X	16	ha-	h-	16	ha-	h-

The class I prefixes y-/a- and ba- correspond to the third person for persons. The personal prefix n- becomes m- before a labial sound (p, b, f, v), while personal prefix tu- becomes du- under Dahl's Law.

	Singular		Plural
	Full pronoun	Subject prefix	Full pronoun	Subject prefix
1st person	njye(we)	n-/m-	mwe(bwe)	tu-/du-
2nd person	wowe	u-/w-	twe(bwe)	mu-/mw-
3rd person	we	a-/y-	bo	ba-

Every regular verb has three stems: the imperfective (ending in the morpheme -a), the perfective (ending in the morpheme -:ye, which may trigger a variety of morphophonological changes in the preceding segment) and the subjunctive (ending in the morpheme -e).

According to Botne (1983), a verb may belong to any of eight Aktionsart categories, which may be broadly grouped into stative and dynamic categories. In the immediate tense, dynamic verbs take the imperfective stem while stative verbs take the perfective stem, while both use the imperfective stem in the habitual or gnomic tense.

Simple tense/mood markers include the following:

• With the present stem:
  • Present ('I do'): - (no infix)
  • Present Progressive ('I am doing'): -ra- (assimilates to -da- when preceded by n)
  • Habitual Past ('I used to do/was doing'): -a- plus -ga suffixed to the verb
  • Future ('I will do'): -za-
• With the past stem:
  • Polite Imperative ('Let me do'; 'please do'): - (no infix)
  • Perfect ('I have done/I did'): -a-
  • Near Past ('I just did'): -ra- (assimilates to -da- when preceded by n)
  • Preterite ('I did'): -ara-
  • Subjunctive ('that I do/did'): -za-

Object affixes corresponding to the noun classes of an object may be placed after the tense marker and before the verb stem:

	Singular			Plural
	Corresp. Noun Class	before consonants	before vowels	Corresp. Noun Class	before consonants	before vowels
1st person		-n-/-m-	-ny-		-tu-/-du-	-tw-
2nd person		-ku-/-gu-	-kw-		-ba-	-b-
I	1	-mu-	-mw-	2	-ba-	-b-
II	3	-wu-	-w-	4	-yi-	-y-
III	5	-ri-	-ry-	6	-ya-	-y-
IV	7	-ki-	-cy-	8	-bi-	-by-
V	9	-yi-	-y-	16	-zi-	-z-
VI	11	-ru-	-rw-	10	-zi-	-z-
VII	12	-ka-/-ga-	-k-	13	-tu-/-du-	-tw-
VIII	14	-bu-	-bw-	16	-ya-	-y-
IX	15	-ku-/-gu-	-kw-	16	-ya-	-y-
X	16	-ha-	-h-	16	-ha-	-h-

The personal object affixes are as follows:

	Singular		Plural
	Full pronoun	Object affix	Full pronoun	Object affix
1st person	njye(we)	-n-/-m- (cons.) -ny- (vowel)	mwebwe	tu-/du- (cons.) -tw- (vowel)
2nd person	wowe	-ku-/-gu- (cons.) -kw- (vowel)	twe(bwe)	-ba- (cons.) -b- (vowel)
3rd person	we	-mu- (cons.) -mw- (vowel)	bo	-ba- (cons.) -b- (vowel)

Causatives

Kinyarwanda employs the use of periphrastic causatives, in addition to morphological causatives.

The periphrastic causatives use the verbs -teer- and -tum-, which mean cause. With -teer-, the original subject becomes the object of the main clause, leaving the original verb in the infinitive (just like in English):Template:Sfn

In this construction, the original S can be deleted.Template:Sfn

With -túm-, the original S remains in the embedded clause and the original verb is still marked for person and tense:Template:Sfn

Derivational causatives use the instrumental marker -iish-. The construction is the same, but it is instrumental when the subject is inanimate and it is causative when the subject is animate:Template:Sfn

This morpheme can be applied to intransitives (3) or transitives (4):Template:Sfn

However, there can only be one animate direct object. If a sentence has two, one or both is deleted and understood from context.Template:Sfn

The suffix -iish- implies an indirect causation (similar to English have in "I had him write a paper), while other causatives imply a direct causation (similar to English make in "I made him write a paper").Template:Sfn

One of these more direct causation devices is the deletion of what is called a "neutral" morpheme -ik-, which indicates state or potentiality. Stems with the -ik- removed can take -iish, but the causation is less direct:Template:Sfn

-mének-	"be broken"	-mén-	"break"	-méneesh-	"have (something) broken"
-sáduk-	"be cut"	-sátur-	"cut"	-sátuz-	"have (something) cut"

Another direct causation maker is -y- which is used for some verbs:Template:Sfn

References

• • Original Thesis: Template:Cite thesis

External links

• Template:Commons category-inline
• Kinyarwanda.net Kinyarwanda–English dictionary Template:Webarchive and grammar reference
• Kinyarwanda phonology case study by University of Texas
• PanAfrican localisation page on Kinyarwanda and Kirundi
• Kinyarwanda–English Dictionary by Betty Ellen Cox
• A Kinyarwanda-English and English-Kinyarwanda Dictionary