Rendille language
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Rendille (also known as Rendile, Randile) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch.
The Ariaal sub-group of the Rendille, who are of mixed Nilotic and Cushitic descent, speak the Nilo-Saharan Samburu language of the Samburu Nilotes, near whom they live.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ alveolar | Retroflex | Post-alv./ Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n̪ | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | t̪ | tɕ | k | (q) | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | dʑ | g | ||||
| Fricative | f | s | x | ħ ~ ʕ | h | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Glide | w | j |
- /tɕ/ can be heard as [ɕ] by some speakers.
- Some speakers always pronounce /x/ as a uvular stop [q].
- [ʕ] can be heard as a free variant of /ħ/, or when /ħ/ is heard in intervocalic position.
- Voiced sounds become voiceless when in word-final position.
- /b/ can be pronounced as [p] when preceding /ħ/, or as a fricative [β] in intervocalic position.
- /r/ can also freely be devoiced as [r̥] in word-initial position, and is always heard as devoiced in word-final position.
- /d̪/ can freely be heard as an affricate [d̪ð], and can also be heard as a fricative [ð] in intervocalic position.
- /x/ can also be heard as an affricate [qχ] when following nasal sounds.
Vowels
- Vowels /i, u, e, o/ are commonly heard as lax [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].
Alphabet
The Rendille alphabet has 26 letters:
| Rendille alphabet | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | A | B | Ch | D | Dh | E | F | G | H | H' | I | J | K |
| a | b | ch | d | dh | e | f | g | h | h' | i | j | k | |
| Phoneme | /a/ | /b/ | /tʃ/ | /ɖ/ | /d̪/ | /e/ | /f/ | /g/ | /ħ/ | /h/ | /i/ | /ʤ/ | /k/ |
| Letter | Kh | L | M | N | Ng' | Ny | O | R | S | T | U | W | Y |
| kh | l | m | n | ng' | ny | o | r | s | t | u | w | y | |
| Phoneme | /x/ | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /ɲ/ | /ɔ/ | /r/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /w/ | /j/ |
Long vowels are written doubled. Tone is phonemic, and high tone can be written as an acute accent ( ́), while low tone is not marked.
Further reading
- Harold C. Fleming, , Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, 20 (1964), pp. 35–96.
- Antoinette Oomen. 1981. "Gender and Plurality in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:35-75.
- Steve Pillinger & Letiwa Galboran. 1999. A Rendille Dictionary, Including a Grammatical Outline and an English-Rendille Index. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 14. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Heine, Bernd. 1976. Notes on the Rendille Language. In Afrika und Übersee LIX. 176-223
- Günther Schlee. 1978. Sprachliche Studien zum Rendille. Hamburger Philologische Studien 46. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
- Ronald J. Sim. 1981. "Morphophonemics of the Verb in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:1-33.