Nyole (also LoNyole, Lunyole, Nyuli) is a Bantu language spoken by the

Banyole The Banyole or Banyuli are a Bantu ethnic group of Uganda that live mainly in Butaleja District. Ethnicity The Banyole are one of the smaller Bantu ethnic groups in Uganda. They are sometimes called "Abalya Lwooba", meaning "mushroom eaters". Th ...

in Butaleja District,

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country 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 south by Tanzania. The south ...

. There is 61% lexical similarity with a related but different Nyole language in Kenya.

Phonology

Consonants

Nyole has series of voiceless, voiced, and

prenasalized Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...

stops. is labio-velar.

Vowels

Historical changes

Nyole has an interesting development from

Proto Proto or PROTO may refer to: Language * Proto-, an English prefix meaning "first" Media * ''Proto'' (magazine), an American science magazine *Radio Proto in Cyprus Music * ''Proto'' (Holly Herndon album), 2019 * ''Proto'' (Leo O'Kelly a ...

-Bantu *p → Nyole . Schadeberg (1989) connects this sound change to

rhinoglottophilia In linguistics, rhinoglottophilia refers to the connection between laryngeal (glottal) and nasal articulations. The term was coined by James A. Matisoff in 1975. There is a connection between the acoustic production of laryngeals and nasals, as ...

, where the sound change developed first as → → . Then, given the acoustic similarity of and

breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internation ...

, the sound change progressed as → → . The velar place of articulation development is due to velar nasals being the least perceptible of the nasals and its marginal status in (pre-)Nyole and other Bantu languages. In closely related neighboring languages, *p developed variously into or or was deleted. This historical development results in so-called "crazy" alternations, like resulting in as in the following: : n-ŋuliira ("hear" stem form) : puliira "I hear" : n-ŋumula ("rest" stem form) : pumula "I rest" In the above two words, when the first person singular subject prefix is added to the stem starting with , the initial consonant surfaces as . In other forms (like "to hear" and "to rest"), the original stem-initial can be seen.

Writing System

References

* Eastman, Carol M. (1972). Lunyole of the Bamenya, ''JAL'', ''11'' (3), 63-78. * Morris, H. F. (1963). A note on Lunyole. ''Uganda Journal'', ''27'', 127-134. * Schadeberg, Thilo C. (1989). The velar nasal in Nyole (E. 35). ''Annales Aequatoria'', ''10'', 169-179.
Available online
. {{Authority control Languages of Uganda Luhya language