Budu
Ɨbʉdhʉ
Native toDemocratic Republic of the Congo
RegionOrientale Province
EthnicityBudu
Native speakers
(180,000 cited 1991)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3buu
Glottologbudu1250
D.332[2]

Budu (Ɨbʉdhʉ) is a Bantu language spoken by the Budu people in the Wamba Territory in the Orientale Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its orthography uses the special characters ɨ, ʉ, ɛ and ɔ, as well as modifier letters colon ꞉ and equal sign ꞊ for grammatical tone, marking past and future tense, respectively.

A variety of this language is called Matta and is spoken locally both north and south of Maboma.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar (Alveolo-)
palatal		 Velar Labio-
velar		 Glottal
Plosive voiceless p t c k
voiced b d ɟ ɡ
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᶮɟ ᵑɡ
implosive ɓ ɗ ʄ
Affricate voiceless t͡ɕ k͡p
voiced d͡ʑ ɡ͡b
prenasal ᶮd͡ʑ ᵑᵐɡ͡b
Fricative voiceless f s h
voiced v z
prenasal ᶬv
Nasal m n ɲ
Approximant (l) j w
  • [z] only occurs in the Koya dialect of Budu.
  • /h/ can be heard as either a voiced [ɦ] or voiceless [h] among different speakers.[3]
  • /ɗ/ can be heard as [l] or a tap [ɾ] in free variation.[4]

    Vowels

    Front Central Back
    Close i u
    Near-close ɪ ʊ
    Close-mid e o
    Open-mid ɛ ɔ
    Open a

    Notes

    1. ↑ Budu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    2. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
    3. ↑ Koehler, Loren S. (1995). An Underspecification Approach To Budu Vowel Harmony. Ann Arbor: UMI.
    4. ↑ Lojenga, Constance K. (1994). Kibudu: A Bantu Language with nine Vowels. Africana Linguistica XI: Tervuren. pp. 127–133.


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