Masaba language
| Masaba | |
|---|---|
| Lumasaba | |
| Native to | Uganda |
| Region | Eastern, south of the Kupsabiny, Bugisu Province |
| Ethnicity | Masaba, Luhya |
Native speakers | 2.8 million (2002 & 2009 censuses)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:myx – Masaba (Gisu, Kisu, Dadiri, Buya)bxk – Bukusu (Tachoni)lts – Tachoni |
JE.31[2] | |
Masaba (Lumasaaba), sometimes known as Gisu (Lugisu) after one of its dialects, is a Bantu language spoken by more than two million people in East Africa. Gisu dialect in eastern Uganda is mutually intelligible with Bukusu, spoken by ethnic Luhya in western Kenya. Masaba is the local name of Mount Elgon and the name of the son of the ancestor of the Gisu tribe. Like other Bantu languages, Lumasaba has a large set of prefixes used as noun classifiers. This is similar to how gender is used in many Germanic and Romance languages, except that instead of the usual two or three, there are around eighteen different noun classes. The language is not tonal[citation needed] but has a quite complex verb morphology.
Varieties
Varieties of Masaba are as follows:[3]
- Gisu (Lugisu)
- Kisu
- Bukusu (Lubukusu; ethnic Luhya)
- Syan
- Tachoni (Lutachoni; ethnic Luhya)
- Dadiri (Ludadiri)
- Buya (Lubuya)
Dadiri is spoken in the north, Gisu in the center, and Buya in the center and south of Masaba territory in Uganda. Bukusu is spoken in Kenya, separated from ethnic Masaba by Nilotic languages on the border.
Sounds
See Bukusu dialect for details of one variety of Masaba.
Consonants
| labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||
| Fricative | f | β | s | z | ||||
| Approximant | l | j | ||||||
Vowels
Masaba has a basic 5-vowel system consisting of /i, e, a, o, u/.
References
- ^ Masaba (Gisu, Kisu, Dadiri, Buya) at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
Bukusu (Tachoni) at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
Tachoni at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ Maho (2009)
- Brown, Gillian (1972) Phonological Rules and Dialectal Variation: A study of the phonology of Lumasaaba ISBN 0-521-08485-7
External links
- Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.[This citation is dated, and should be substituted with a specific edition of Ethnologue]
- Kulomba Kwikumutikinyi Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in Masaba (1907) digitized by Richard Mammana and Charles Wohlers
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