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Dholuo language)
Luo (also known als Dholuo) is a Western Nilotic language spoken by the Luo people, numbering about 3 million. Luo is spoken on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Tanzania. It is broadcast on KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, formerly the Voice of Kenya).
Luo is closely related to Lango and Acholi of Uganda.
Sounds
Vowels
Luo has vowel harmony: all vowels in a word have to belong to a single class. Luo has two sets of five vowels, distinguisted by the feature [+/-ATR].
Consonants
In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of ‘y’ for IPA [j], common in African orthographies. When symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
Phonetic inventory of consonants in Luo, IPA notation.
| . |
bilabial |
labio-
dental |
alveolar |
palatal |
velar |
glottal |
| stops |
p b |
|
t d |
c (c) ɟ (j) |
k g |
|
| fricatives |
|
f |
s |
|
|
h |
| nasals |
m |
|
n |
ɲ (ny) |
ŋ |
|
prenasalized
stops |
mb |
|
nd |
ɲɟ (nj) |
ŋg (ng) |
|
| trills |
|
|
r |
|
|
|
| approximants |
|
w |
l |
j (y) |
|
|
Bibliography
- Gregersen, Edgar (1961) Luo: A grammar. Dissertation: Yale University.
- Stafford, Roy L. (1965) An elementary Luo grammar with vocabularies. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
- Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1982) The major syntactic structures of Dholuo. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
- Tucker, Archibald N. (ed. by Chet A. Creider) (1994) A grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Okoth Okombo, Duncan (1997) A Functional Grammar of Dholuo. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Odaga, Asenath Bole (1997) English-Dholuo dictionary. / Asenath Bole Odaga. Lake Publishers & Enterprises, Kisumu.
- Odhiambo, Reenish Acieng' and Aagard-Hansen, Jens (1998) Dholuo course book. Nairobi.
External links
