Dholuo language
From Freepedia
| Luo (Dholuo) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Kenya, Tanzania |
| Region: | East of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya and Northern Tanzania |
| Total speakers: | 3 million |
| Ranking: | Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Nilo-Saharan
Eastern Sudanic |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | none |
| Regulated by: | none |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | n.a. |
| ISO 639-2 | n.a. (B) / luo (T) |
| SIL | luo |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
Luo (also known as Dholuo) is a Western Nilotic language spoken by the Luo people, numbering about 3 million. Luo is spoken on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Tanzania. It is broadcast on KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, formerly the Voice of Kenya)and Radio Ramogi. Dholuo is closely related to Lango, Acholi and Dhopadhola of Uganda.
Contents |
Sounds
Vowels
Luo has vowel harmony: all vowels in a word have to belong to a single class. Luo has two sets of five vowels, distinguished by the feature [+/-ATR].
| . | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | ɒ |
| . | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Consonants
In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of ‘y’ for IPA [j], common in African orthographies. When symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
| . | bilabial | labio- dental |
alveolar | palatal | velar | glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stops | p b | t d | c (c) ɟ (j) | k g | ||
| fricatives | f | s | h | |||
| nasals | m | n | ɲ (ny) | ŋ | ||
| prenasalized stops |
mb | nd | ɲɟ (nj) | ŋg (ng) | ||
| trills | r | |||||
| approximants | w | l | j (y) |
Bibliography
- Gregersen, Edgar (1961) Luo: A grammar. Dissertation: Yale University.
- Stafford, Roy L. (1965) An elementary Luo grammar with vocabularies. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
- Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1982) The major syntactic structures of Dholuo. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
- Tucker, Archibald N. (ed. by Chet A. Creider) (1994) A grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Okoth Okombo, Duncan (1997) A Functional Grammar of Dholuo. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Odaga, Asenath Bole (1997) English-Dholuo dictionary. / Asenath Bole Odaga. Lake Publishers & Enterprises, Kisumu.
- Odhiambo, Reenish Acieng' and Aagard-Hansen, Jens (1998) Dholuo course book. Nairobi.
External links
- Ethnologue on Luo
- Luo/Acholi/Lango Language page
- Luo and the Nilo-Saharan family
- Rice University Owlnet Luo Homepage
