Kumam is a language of the Southern Lwoo group[3] spoken by the Kumam people of Uganda. It is estimated that the Kumam dialect has 82 percent lexical similarity with the Acholi dialect, 81 percent with the Lango dialect.[4]
| Kumam | |
|---|---|
| Ikokolemu | |
| Native to | Uganda |
| Region | Teso District |
| Ethnicity | Kumam people |
Native speakers | 270,000 (2014 census)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kdi |
| Glottolog | kuma1275 |
Phonology
editConsonants
edit| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | c | k |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | g | |
| Fricative | (f)[1] | (s)[1] | |||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Semivowel | w | j | |||
Gemination can occur due to morphological processes, for example del 'skin' + -ná → dellá 'my skin'.[3]
Vowels
editKumam has ten vowels, with a vowel harmony system based on presence or absence of advanced tongue root (ATR).[3]
| [-ATR] | [+ATR] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| Close | ɪ | i | u | |
| Mid | ɛ | ɔ | e | o |
| Open | a | ɑ | ||
Vowels have no distinction in length, except due to some morphological processes, for instance compensatory lengthening that occurs when applying the transitive infinitive suffix -nɔ: ted- 'cook' + -ne → *ted-do → teedo 'to cook'.[3]
Tone
editThere exist six tones: low, high, falling, rising, downstep high and double downstep high.[3]
| Tone | Transcription |
|---|---|
| low | [à] |
| high | [á] |
| falling | [â] |
| rising | [ǎ] |
| downstep high | [!á] |
| double downstep high | [!!á] |
Tone sandhi
editKumam exhibits tone sandhi in two ways. The first is the spreading of high tonemes rightwards to the following words beginning with a low tonemes, as in ɑbúké 'eyelash' + waŋ 'eye' → abúké wâŋ 'eyelash'. The second is when a floating high toneme is followed by a word beginning in a low toneme, where the floating tone is assigned to the following word and not the word bearing the floating tone: cogó 'bone' + rac 'bad' → cogo râc 'The bone is bad.'[3]
Grammar
editVerbs
editValency
editTransitive stems are constructed by applying the suffix -ɔ (yɛŋ 'be satisfied' → yɛŋ-ɔ 'satisfy'). A subset of transitive verbs can have the suffix -ɛ́rɛ́ applied to form what Hieda calls a 'middle form' (nɛ́n-ɔ → nɛ́!nɛ́rɛ́ 'be seen').[3]
Basic lexicon
editHello – yoga
How are you? –Itiye benyo (singular), Itiyenu benyo (plural)
Fine, and you? – Atiye ber, arai bon yin?
Fine – Atiye ber or just ber
What is your name? – Nying in en Ngai?
My name is ... – Nying ango en ...
Name --- Nying
Nice to see you. --- Apwoyo Neno in (also: Apwoyo Neno wun)
See you again --- Oneno bobo
Book – Itabo
Because – Pi Ento
The first sentence in the bible can be translated as I ya gege, Rubanga ocweo wi polo kede piny ("In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth" ).
References
edit- ^ Kumam at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2023-07-10). "Glottolog 4.8 - Southern Lwoo". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 2023-11-21. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
- ^ a b c d e f g Hieda, Osamu (2020). "Kumam". The Oxford Handbook of African Languages: 611–629. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.001.0001.
- ^ "Kumam". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
