Luganda tones

Luganda, the main language of southern Uganda, is a tonal language, traditionally described as having three tones: high (á), low (à) and falling (â). Rising tones are not found in Luganda, even on long vowels, since a sequence such as [àá] automatically becomes [áá].

Tones perform various functions in Luganda: they help to distinguish one word from another, they distinguish one verb tense from another, and they are also used in sentence intonation, for example, to distinguish a statement from a question.

The complexity of the Luganda tonal system has attracted the attention of numerous scholars, who have sought ways of describing Luganda tones most economically according to different linguistic models.

Although there are many complexities of detail, the general lines of tone in Luganda are simple. Most sentences have a gradual descent from the first high tone to the last, as in the following sentence:

The three high tones ú, ú, and áń stand out prominently from the other syllables, and each one is a little lower than the last. The toneless syllables between are lower in pitch than the high tones. This descent is known as downdrift or 'automatic downstep' and is common in many African languages whenever tones come in a sequence HLH.

Another type of tonal pattern very common in Luganda is the high tone plateau. In this pattern, two high tones are at the same level, and the voice remains continuously high from one the other:

A third type of tonal pattern, not quite so common, is to have a series of low tones followed by a jump to a high one:

These three tonal patterns will be heard to occur again and again in Luganda sentences, and much of the description below concerns when to use one and when another.

There are various types of high tone in Luganda, of which lexical, grammatical and phrasal tones are the most important. (To these can be added boundary tones and other tones indicating intonation.)

Lexical high tones are those that go with particular words, such as those on the words below:

When a word with final tone such as ensî 'country' is spoken in isolation or at the end of a sentence, the tone is always heard as a falling tone; but in other contexts, it will generally be heard as an ordinary high tone.

Falling lexical tones can also be heard in non-final position:

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