Rendille language

Rendille
Afi Renꞌdille
Native toKenya
RegionEastern Province
EthnicityRendille
Native speakers
96,000 (2019 census)[1]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3rel
Glottologrend1243

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.[2]

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.[2][3]

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

Front Central Back
Close i iː u uː
Mid e eː o oː
Open a aː
  • Vowels /i, u, e, o/ are commonly heard as lax [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].

Notes

  1. ^ Rendille at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ a b Ethnologue - Rendille
  3. ^ Parris, Ronald G. (1994). Rendille. Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 13. ISBN 0823917630.

References

  • Harold C. Fleming, "Baiso and Rendille: Somali Outliers", 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.


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