Sukuma language
| Sukuma | |
|---|---|
| Kɪsukuma | |
| Region | Tanzania |
| Ethnicity | Sukuma |
|
Native speakers
|
5.4 million (2006) |
|
Niger–Congo
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | suku1261 |
F.21 |
|
Sukuma is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken in an area south east of Victoria Nyanza in a country between Mwanza, Shinyanga, Lake Eyasi and 2 degrees 20 minutes south, 55 degrees east. In an orthography using roman script without special letters, and resembling that used for Swahili, it has been used in Bible translation and in religious literature.
Dialects (KɪmunaSukuma in the west, GɪmunaNtuzu/GɪnaNtuzu in the northeast, Jìnàkɪ̀ɪ̀yâ/JimunaKɪɪyâ in the southeast) are easily mutually intelligible.
There are seven vowel qualities, which occur long and short:
/ɪ ʊ/—which are written ⟨ĩ ũ⟩—may be closer to [e o], and /e o/ closer to [ɛ ɔ].
Sukuma has gone through Dahl's Law (ɪdàtʊ́ 'three', from proto-Bantu -tatʊ) and has voiceless nasal consonants.
It is not clear whether /c ɟ/ should best be considered stops or affricates, or whether they are even palatal.
Syllables are V or CV. There are four tones on short vowels: high, low, rising, and falling.
The following description is based on JinaKɪɪya dialect. One of the characteristics of this dialect is that the noun-class prefixes subject to Dahl's Law have been leveled to voiced consonants, and no longer alternate.
Sukuma noun-class prefixes are augmented by pre-prefixes a-, ɪ-, ʊ-; these are dropped in certain constructions. The noun classes and the agreement they trigger are as follows. Attested forms in other dialects are added in parentheses.
(For compatibility, /j/ is transcribed ⟨y⟩.)
Many kin terms have a reduced form of the nominal prefixes, zero and βa-, called class 1a/2a, as in mààyʊ̂ 'mother', βàmààyʊ̂ 'mothers'. Concord is identical with other class-1/2 nouns.
Singular/plural pairs are 1/2, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, and 12/13; the locative classes 16, 17, 18 do not have plurals. Most others use class 6 for their plurals: 11/6, 14/6, 15/6, and also sometimes 7/6 and 12/6. There are also nouns that inflect as 11/4, 11/14, 14/10, and 15/8.
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