Nande, also known as ''(Oru)Ndandi'' and Yira, is a
Bantu language
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
The t ...
spoken in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
.
The Nande of Congo and the
Konjo people of Uganda are a single ethnic group, which they call Yira (Bayira). They trace their origins to the
Ruwenzori Mountains
The Ruwenzori, also spelled Rwenzori and Rwenjura, are a range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches , and the range ...
between the two countries. The languages Nande and
Konjo are close enough to be considered divergent dialects. Nande has a number of dialects of its own: Nande proper, Kumbule, Mate, Tangi, Sanza, Shu, Songola (''Songoora,'' Nyangala), Swaga / Kira (in Nande, all of these are prefixed with ''eki-'').
For the varieties of this language known as Shu we are given the information that another language, "
EkiShukaali" was formerly spoken by the women, the ''AvaShukaali''. This may be a specific reference to some kind of "secret jargon" into which the girls, and not boys, were initiated.
Some of the Nande of Congo have a patron–vassal relationship with the
Efé Pygmies.
Phonology
Consonants
* Palatal and labio-velar glides
, w
The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline o ...
are only heard as a result of front vowels /i, ɪ, ɛ/ or back vowels /u, ʊ, ɔ/ preceding other vowels, or in stem-initial positions between two vowels.
* Voiceless plosives /p, t, k/ can be freely heard as voiced
, d, ɡamong speakers, or voiced stops may also occur in loanwords.
*
Vowels
* Sounds /ɛ, ɔ/ can also occur as more tense (close) vowels
, owithin stems containing tense vowels (like /i, u/), or within stems in plural form.
References
External links
Kinande: A Grammar Sketch (Version 1.0)
{{Authority control
Great Lakes Bantu languages
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo