Acholi ( , also Leb Acoli, or Leb Lwo) is a
Southern Luo
The Southern Luo languages are a subgroup of the Luo languages and form a dialect cluster spoken from Uganda and neighboring countries.
Classification
The Southern Luo dialects are classified within the Glottolog database as follows:
* Southe ...
dialect spoken by the
Acholi people
The Acholi people ( , also spelled Acoli) are a Nilotic peoples, Nilotic ethnic group of Luo peoples (also spelled Lwo), found in Magwi County in South Sudan and Northern Region, Uganda, Northern Uganda (an area commonly referred to as Acholiland ...
in the districts of
Gulu,
Kitgum
Kitgum is a municipality in Kitgum District in the Northern Region, Uganda, Northern Region of Uganda. The town is administered by Kitgum Municipality Council, an urban local government. It is the largest metropolitan area in the district and th ...
,
Amuru,
Lamwo,
Agago,
Nwoya,
Omoro and
Pader (a region known as
Acholiland) in northern
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
. The Dhopaluo (Chope) sub-dialect of Acholi is spoken in the
Kiryandongo District in the kingdom of
Bunyoro. It is also spoken in
South Sudan
South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...
in
Magwi County
Magwi County, also Magwe County, is a county in Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan.
Location
The county is located in Eastern Equatoria. It is bordered to the west and north by Juba County, by Torit County to the north east, by Ikotos County to ...
,
Eastern Equatoria
Eastern Equatoria is a state in South Sudan. It has an area of 73,472 km2. The capital city is Torit. On October 1, 1972, the state was divided into Imatong and Namorunyang states and was re-established by a peace agreement signed on 22 F ...
.
''
Song of Lawino
''Song of Lawino'' ( Acholi: ''Wer pa Lawino'') is an epic poem written by Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek. It was first published in 1966 in an English translation by the author, although Chapter 14, its final chapter, was removed. It was quickly tr ...
'', well known in African literature, was written in Acholi by
Okot p'Bitek
Okot p'Bitek (7 June 1931 – 19 July 1982) was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for '' Song of Lawino'', a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up urban life and wis ...
, although its sequel, ''Song of Ocol'', was written in English.
Acholi,
Alur, and Jo Padola have between 84 and 90 per cent of their vocabulary in common and are
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...
. However, they are often counted as separate languages because their speakers are ethnically distinct. Labwor (Thur), once considered a dialect of Acholi, may not be intelligible with it.
Phonology
Acholi has
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...
: all vowels in a word have to belong to a single class (e.g. ''the cold'' vs. ''to separate''). There are two sets of five vowels, distinguished by the feature
/-ATR
/pʷ/ and /bʷ/ sounds may also sound as labial affricates
fand
v
Acholi is a
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 oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasi ...
. It has high, low, downstep high and double downstep high tones, but also two
contour tones: one rising and one falling.
Thus, some words may be distinguished by tone alone, e.g. ''bèl'' (low) 'wrinkled' vs. ''bél'' (high) 'corn' and ''kàl'' (low) 'place enclosed by a palisade' vs. ''kál'' (high) 'millet'. Tone furthermore plays a role in verb conjugation.
Recent work
The above were the old work of the missionaries Alfred Malandra and Crazzolara published in 1955. However, a more up-to-date Acholi orthography by Janet Lakareber shows that a vowel in Acholi language has more than two pronunciations. A monosyllabic word in Acholi has 14 different pronunciations. This is explained in the nine books of Acoli Accented Orthography.
Notes and references
Notes
# Heron, G.A., 1972, Introduction p. 8 in p'Bitek, Okot, 1984.
# Ladefoged et al., 1972:80.
Endnotes
Bibliography
*Crazzolara, J.P. (1938) ''A study of the Acooli language. Grammar and Vocabulary.'' International Institute of African Languages and Cultures. London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press.
*Kitching, Arthur Leonard (1932) ''An outline grammar of the Acholi language'' (first published 1907). London: Sheldon Press / Kampala: The Uganda Bookshop.
*Ladefoged, Peter; Ruth Glick; Clive Criper; Clifford H. Prator; Livingstone Walusimbi (1972) ''Language in Uganda'' (Ford Foundation language surveys vol. 1). London/New York etc. Oxford University Press.
*Malandra, Alfred (1955) ''A new Acholi grammar''. Kampala: Eagle Press
Hathitrust record*Okidi, Festo (2000) ''Acholi for beginners: grammar, Acholi–English, English–Acholi''. London: Pilato Books.
*p'Bitek, Okot (1985) ''Acholi proverbs''. Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya.
*p'Bitek, Okot (1984) ''Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol''. (
African Writers Series, 266). London: Heinemann Educational.
*Janet Lakareber (2011) ''Coono Leb Acoli (intro) Acoli Accented Orthography''. London: GBILA.
External links
*
Listen to a sample of Acholi from Global Recordings NetworkIRIN Radio
– Radio programming from northern Uganda in Luo
{{Authority control
Acholi
Languages of Uganda
Languages of South Sudan
Luo languages