Lendu language

The Lendu language is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Balendru, an ethno-linguistic agriculturalist group residing in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the area west and northwest of Lake Albert, specifically the Ituri Region of Orientale Province. It is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu was the basis of the Ituri conflict.

Lendu
Balendru
Native toCongo (DRC)
EthnicityLendu, Hema, Alur, Okebu
Native speakers
(760,000, including Ndrulo cited 1996)[1]
Dialects
  • Badha
Language codes
ISO 639-3led
Glottologlend1245
Linguasphere03-BAD

Besides the Balendru, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu.

Names

Ethnologue gives Bbadha as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists Badha as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languages, available from his website and dated 2012, lists Lendu/Badha.

Phonology

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Near-close ɪ ʊ
Mid ɛ ə ɔ
Open a

Consonants
Labial Dental/
Alveolar		 Post-
alveolar		 Palatal Velar Labial-
velar		 Glottal
central sibilant
Nasal m n ɲ
Stop/
Affricate		 voiceless p t t͡s t͡ʃ k k͡p ʔ
voiced b d d͡z d͡ʒ ɟ g ɡ͡b
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᶮd͡ʒ ᵑɡ
vl. implosive ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊
vd. implosive ɓ ɗ ʄ
Fricative voiceless f θ s ʃ h
voiced v ð z ʒ
prenasal ⁿz
Rhotic r
Approximant plain l j w
glottalized ʼw

Implosives

Demolin (1995)[2] posits that Lendu has voiceless implosives, /ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊/ (/ƥ ƭ ƈ/). However, Goyvaerts (1988)[3] had described these as creaky-voiced implosives /ɓ̰ ɗ̰ ʄ̰/, as in Hausa, contrasting with a series of modally voiced implosives /ɓ ɗ ʄ/ as in Kalabari, and Ladefoged judges that this seems to be a more accurate description.[4]


References
  1. Lendu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Demolin, Didier. 1995. The phonetics and phonology of glottalized consonants in Lendu. In Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia (eds.), Phonology and Phonetic Evidence. Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV, 368-385. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  3. Goyvaerts, Didier L. 1988. Glottalized Consonants a New Dimension. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 3. 97-102. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  4. Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 87–89. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
  • Kutsch-Lojenga, Constance. 1989. The Secret behind Vowelless Syllables in Lendu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 11. 115-126. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  • Tucker, Archibald N. 1940. Lendu. In The Eastern Sudanic Languages: Volume I, 380-418. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Trifkovic, Mirjana. 1977. Tone preserving vowel reduction in Lendu. Studies in African Linguistics 8. 121-125.
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