Ruund
Chiluwunda
Native toDemocratic Republic of the Congo, Angola
RegionCopperbelt
Native speakers
250,000 (2000)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3rnd
Glottologruun1238
L.53[2]

Ruund (Ruwund), also known as Northern Lunda or Uruund, is a Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is highly unusual among Bantu languages for allowing consonantal codas and for its reduced vowel system, in which short /e/ and /o/ have become [i] and [a] respectively, leaving only 3 short vowels.[3]

Another interesting feature of Ruund is that, as with the related Ciluba language, the tones of Proto-Bantu have reversed, so that High has become Low and vice versa.[4] In this language therefore the accented syllables are Low and the default tone is High.

References

  1. ↑ Ruund at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  3. ↑ Hyman, Larry. "Segmental Phonology" (PDF). p. 8. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  4. ↑ Nash, J.A. (1994), "Underlying Low Tones in Ruwund". Studies in African Linguistics Volume 23, Number 3,1992-1994.


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