Rwanda-Rundi is a group of Bantu languages, specifically a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

, spoken in Central Africa. Two dialects,

Kirundi Kirundi, also known as Rundi, is a Bantu language spoken by some 9 million people in Burundi and adjacent parts of Rwanda, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, as well as in Kenya. It is the official language of Burundi. K ...

and

Kinyarwanda Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is spoken in Rwanda and adjacent parts of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda (where t ...

, have been standardized as

national languages A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...

of Burundi and Rwanda respectively. These neighbouring dialects are mutually intelligible, but other dialects which are more distant ones, may not be. The other dialects are spoken in DR Congo (Kinyabwisha in North Kivu, Kinyamulenge in South Kivu), Uganda (Rufumbira spoken by the

Bafumbira The Bafumbira (ethnonym: ''Bafumbira''; singular ''Mufumbira''), are a Bantu ethnic group from Kisoro District in South Western Uganda. They are of three indigenous groups: Bahutu, Batutsi and Batwa. History The Batwa are believed to have bee ...

in Kisoro District), and Tanzania; Ha, with one million speakers, is the most widely spoken.

Comparison of Kinyarwanda and Kirundi

and

are very similar in many aspects, but differ in several ways as well.

Tonal marking

Both languages are

tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...

s. High and low tones (or H and L) are the essential tones and, having a 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 and when a long vowel changes from a high tone to a low tone, it is marked as a falling tone. This is often illustrated in

Meeussen's Rule Meeussen's rule is a special case of tone reduction in Bantu languages. The tonal alternation it describes is the lowering, in some contexts, of the last tone of a pattern of two adjacent High tones (HH), resulting in the pattern HL. The phenomenon ...

. Propositions have also been made that tones can shift by a metrical or rhythmic structure.

Spelling

Word formation

There are many instances in which the two speech varieties of both languages have words that are slightly different. However, these differences do not continually recur. One has to memorize such differences as "-anga" in Kinyarwanda in contrast to "-anka" in Kirundi (meaning to dislike or hate), because the shift from "g" to "k" is extremely rare, with proof being words like "inka" (cow), "inkono" (pot) and many other words where "nk" is common in both dialects. Such minor variations involve different consonants, vowels or vowel lengths, tones or affixes.

References

Sources

* {{Authority control Languages of Burundi Languages of Rwanda Languages of Tanzania Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Articles citing Nationalencyklopedin