Zande
Pazande
Native to	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan
Ethnicity	Zande
speakers	(L1: 1.8 million cited 1996–2017)[1] L2: 100,000 (2013)[2]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Savannas? Ubangian Zande languages Zande–Nzakara Zande
Dialects	Dio Makaraka
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	zne
Glottolog	zand1248

Zande is the largest of the Zande languages. It is spoken by the Azande, primarily in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and western South Sudan, but also in the eastern part of the Central African Republic. It is called Pazande in the Zande language and Kizande in Lingala.

Estimates about the number of speakers vary; in 2001 Koen Impens cited studies that put the number between 700,000 and one million.^[3]

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Labio- velar
Nasal		m	n		ɲ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t			k	k͡p
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd			ᵑɡ	ᵑɡ͡b
	voiced	b	d			ɡ	ɡ͡b
Fricative	voiceless	f	s
	prenasal	ᶬv	ⁿz
	voiced	v	z
Rhotic			r ~ ɽ
Approximant					j		w

• Alveolar sounds /d, z, ⁿz, s, t, ⁿd/ have allophones as palato-alveolar sounds [d͡ʒ, ʒ, ⁿʒ, ʃ, t͡ʃ, ⁿd͡ʒ] when preceding /i/.
• The retroflex tap /ɽ/ can be heard as an alveolar trill [r] in free variation.^[4]

Oral and Nasal vowels

	Front		Back
			unrounded		rounded
Close	i	ĩ			u	ũ
Near-close	ɪ	ɪ̃			ʊ	ʊ̃
Close-mid	e	ẽ			o	õ
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛ̃	ʌ	ʌ̃	ɔ	ɔ̃
Open			a	ã

Zande spelling rules were established at the 1928 Rejaf Language Conference^[5] following the principles of the International African Institute.^[6]

Zande alphabet of Gore 1931^[7]

a

b

d

e

f

g

i

k

m

n

o

ö

p

s

t

u

v

w

y

z

Nasalized vowels are indicated using the tilde : ⟨ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ⟩. Consonants with double articulation are represented by digraphs: ⟨gb kp mv nv ny⟩.

In 1959, Archibald Norman Tucker published a Zande alphabet proposed during the Bangenzi Conference of 1941.^[8]

Zande alphabet of Tucker 1959

a

ä

b

d

e

f

g

h

i

i̧

k

m

n

o

p

r

s

t

u

u̧

v

w

y

z

’

Nasalized vowels are indicated using the tilde : ã ẽ ĩ ĩ̧ õ ũ ũ̧ r̃. Consonants with double articulation are represented by digraphs or trigraphs : kp gb ny mb nv nd nz ng ngb mgb

SIL International published a Zande alphabet in 2014.^[9]

Zande alphabet (SIL)

a

ə

b

d

e

f

g

gb

h

i

ɨ

k

kp

l

m

mb

n

nd

ngb

nv

ny

nz

o

p

s

t

u

ʉ

v

w

y

z

Avunguagudee, oni nangarasa rukutu awironi na gu sosono yo i mangi agu asunge dunduko na ngbarago i afuhe fuyo i mangihe, singia si tii Bambu Kindo yo, watadu ba bakere adunguratise yo?

Translation

Parents, do you encourage your children and teenagers to work cheerfully at any assignment that they are given to do, whether at the Kingdom Hall, at an assembly, or at a convention site?

1) Personal Pronouns

	Subject Form	Objective Form
I/me	mi	re
you/thou/thee (singular)	mo	ro
he/him	ko	ko
she/her	ro	ri
he/she (indef. gender)/him/her	ni	ni
we/us	ani	rani
you (plural)/you	oni	roni
they/them	i/yo	yo

2)      The Animal Pronoun

	Subjective Form	Objective Form
it	u	ru
they/them	ru	ra

The Objective forms of these pronouns are regularly used as suffixes denoting the first or intimate form of the Genitive. Those nouns which end in se drop this syllable before the suffixed pronoun.^[10] For instance,

boro -> ‘person’, borore -> ‘my body’

ngbaduse -> ‘chest’, ngbadure -> ‘my chest’

kpu -> ‘home’, kpuro -> ‘thou home’

3) Possessive pronouns

	Singular
mine	gimi
thine/yours	gamo
his	gako
hers	gari
his/hers (indef. gender)	gani

	Plural
its(animal)	gau
its (neuter)	gaa
ours	gaani
yours	gaoni
theirs	gayo
theirs (animal)	gaami

Possessive pronouns can be used as reflexive pronouns.^[11] For instance,

Mi ye ti gimi -> ‘I have come myself.’

A ndu ti gani -> ‘Let us go ourselves.’

4). The Reflexive Pronoun

	Singular
myself	tire
thyself (singular)	tiro
himself	tiko
herself	tiri
itself (animal)	tiru
itself (neuter)	tie

	Plural
ourselves	tirani
yourselves	tironi
themselves	tiyo
themselves	tira

For example, Mi a mangi e ni tire -> ‘I did it by (with) myself.’

Pluralisation: Pluralising a noun in Zande language is often done by adding "a" before a singular noun.^[12]

For example:

boro 'a person' -> aboro 'people'

nya 'a beast' ->  anya 'beasts'

e 'a thing' -> ae 'things'

Verbs often change tense by adding the corresponding tense marker.^[13] For instance:

• mi na manga -> 'I am doing (tense marker, temple auxiliary)'
• mi a manga -> 'I do (tense marker, temple auxiliary)'

Besides, the verb doesn't change with their subject noun/pronoun.^[14] For instance

• mi na manga -> 'I am doing'
• mo na manga -> 'Thou (you) are doing'
• ko na manga -> 'He (she) is doing'
• ani na manga -> 'We are doing'
• oni na manga -> 'You are doing'
• i na manga -> 'They are doing'

Verbal negation is expressed by placing nga after the verb and then ending the negative statement with the particle te or ya at the end of the sentence.

Negative auxiliaries are separated to enclose subordinate clauses contained in the main negative statement, so affirmative verbs can usually be surrounded by them.

Verb + nga…te/ya (te/ya is put at the end of the whole sentence)

The indicative 'nga… te'

The Imperative 'nga…ya'

For instance,

a). Mi a manga a -> 'I do it'

Mi a manga nga a te -> 'I do not do it.'

Ka mo ni mangi nga a ya -> 'Do not do it.'

The Zande have a more limited method of counting, never exceeding the numbers 20 and 40. Usually Zande people count by counting fingers and toes. Therefore when a number over twenty is counted another person must count the number beyond twenty and so on. So all the numbers over twenty or over ten are not separate numbers but are described in a sentence.^[16]

1). The system of 1-5

sa 'one', ue 'two', biata 'three', biama 'four', bisue 'five'

2). When the number exceeds five, it must be transferred to the other hand to continue counting, so that 6-9 are based on five and are obtained by constantly adding 1-4.

• bati -> 'step over' (a verb)
• bisue bati sa -> 6 (lit.,5 step over 1)
• bisue bati ue -> 7 (lit.,5 step over 2)

3). When the counting goes to 10 it becomes a simple numeral again

• bawe -> 10

4). 11-14

• bati sende yo -> 'step over from below'
• OR bati yari sende yo -> 'step over from blew'

So that the 11 and 12 in Zande are:

• bawe bati sende yo sa OR bawe yari sende yo sa -> 11
• bawe bati sende yo ue OR bawe yari sende yo us -> 12

5). When the counting goes to 15 it is a simple numeral

• ira ->15

6). 16-19 is an additive operation that builds on 15

• yari ku bani-> 'step over to the other'
• ira yari ku bani sa-> 16 (lit., 15 step over to the other side 1)

7). A person's hands and feet add up to 20 digits, so the expression for 20 is "a person stands it."

• boro ru e -> 20 (lit., a person stands it)

8). Above 20

• boro ru e zi be sa -> 21 (lit., a person stands it, take from the arm 1)
• boro ru e yari ku bani sa -> 21 (lit., a person stands it, take from the person there 1)
• boro ru e yari ku bani sa -> 21 (lit., a person stands it, step over to the other side 1)

9). 30

boro re e zi be boro yo bawe -> 30 (lit., a person stands it, take from the person there 10)

10). 40 (20+20)

boro ru e ue -> 40 (lit., person stands it 2)

11). Larger Numbers

kama -> 100, kama na ue bawe -> 120 (na -> and)

ue kama -> 200

kuti -> 1,000

ue kuti -> 2,000

mirioni -> 1,000,000

S + V + O

Mi nga gude -> 'I am a boy'

mi -> 'I', nga -> 'am', (to be), gude -> 'boy'

bami -> 'my father'

(ba -> 'father', mi -> 'my')

possessed noun needs to add a suffix (objective pronoun form) to express what it is belonged to whom.^[17]

kporo -> 'a village' (abbr. Kpu)

kpure -> 'my home', kpuro -> 'thy home' , kpuko -> 'his home'

before a noun is becomes KU

ku kuma ->'a man’s home' (kuma -> 'man', ku -> 'home')

ku Gangura -> 'Gangura’s home'

Demonstrative Adjectives

gere -> 'this', gi…re      agi…re -> 'these' (plural)

gure -> 'that', gu…re.     agu…re -> 'those' (plural)

Mo fu gere fe re -> 'give me this'

Mo di gure -> 'take this'

When they are used with noun pronouns, the syllables need to be separated so that they surround the noun pronoun and sometimes include the entire clause that modifies the noun pronoun.^[18]

gi boro re -> 'this person'

gi ko re -> 'this man'

agi aboro re -> 'these people'

agi yo re -> 'these people' (lit. these they)

agu bambu re -> 'those house' (bambu -> 'house')

the number add always behind the noun and the noun usually uses its singular form

For instance,

sape bisue -> 'five knives'

Eg1. Yesu ki bi yo i ni pe ko -> 'Jesus saw them following him.'

(bi -> 'saw', yo -> 'them', i ni pe -> 'following', ko -> 'him')

Eg2. Mi a ndu ki bo ko -> 'I went and saw him.'

Eg3. Ko a ndu ki mangi e ki yega -> 'He went and did it and came home.'

wa -> 'like' it is usually put before the adjective

• • eg. Ga ango ni kikii ru wa kina gimi ru -> 'Your dog is a big one just like mine.'

ti -> 'than' it is usually put after the adjective

• • eg. Ga gu kuma bambu re ngba ti gamo -> 'That man’s house is better that yours.'

susa (i) -> to surpass

• • Ga roko bakere susi gimi? -> 'Is your cloth bigger than mine?'

• Gore, Edward Clive (1931). A Zande Grammar. Sheldon Press.
• Tucker, Archibald Norman (1959). Le groupe linguistique zande (in French). Musée royal du Congo belge.
• "Awalaga Gɨda Pazande. Alphabet Zande, R. D. Congo [PDF]". vdoc.pub.

• PanAfrican L10n page on Zande