Kinyarwanda,[3]Rwandan orRwanda, officially known asIkinyarwanda,[4] is aBantu language and thenational language ofRwanda.[5] It is a dialect of theRwanda-Rundi language that is also spoken inUganda, where the dialect is known as Ikinyakore, Rufumbira, orUrufumbira. Kinyarwanda is universal among the native population of Rwanda and is mutually intelligible withKirundi, the national language of neighbouring Burundi.[6]
In 2010, the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC)[7] was established to help promote and sustain Kinyarwanda. The organization attempted an orthographic reform in 2014, but it was met with pushback due to their perceived top-down and political nature, among other reasons.[8]
Kinyarwanda is atonal language. Like manyBantu languages, it has a two-way contrast between high and low tones (low-tone syllables may be analyzed as toneless). The realization of tones in Kinyarwanda is influenced by a complex set ofphonological rules.
Except in a few morphological contexts, the sequences 'ki' and 'ke' may be pronounced interchangeably as[ki] and[ke] or[ci] and[ce] according to speaker's preference.[9]
The letters⟨a, e, i⟩ at the end of a word followed by a word starting with a vowel often follows a pattern of omission in common speech (sandhi), though the orthography remains the same. Consider the following excerpt of theRwandan anthem:Reka tukurate tukuvuge ibigwi wowe utubumbiye hamwe twese Abanyarwanda uko watubyaye berwa, sugira, singizwa iteka. would be pronounced asReka tukurate tukuvug' ibigwi wow' utubumiye hamwe twes' abanyarwand' uko watubyaye berwa, sugira singizw' iteka.[citation needed]
There are some discrepancies in pronunciation from orthographicCw andCy. The glides/wj/ strengthen to stops in consonant clusters. For example,rw (as inRwanda) is normally pronounced[ɾɡw]. The differences are the following:
Orthography
Pronunciation
mw
[mŋ]
nw
[nŋw]
nyw
[ɲŋw] or[ŋwa]
pw
[pk]
fw
[fk]
pfw
[p͡fk]
bw
[bɡ]
vw
[vɡ]
tw
[tkw]
tsw
[t͡skw]
cw
[t͡ʃkw]
sw
[skw]
shw
[ʃkw]
dw
[dɡw]
zw
[zɡw]
jw
[ʒɡw]
rw
[ɾɡw]
my
[mɲ]
py
[pc]
ty
[tc]
sy
[sc]
by
[bɟ]
ndy
[ndɟ]
ry
[ɾɟ]
These are all sequences;[bɡ], for example, is notlabial-velar[ɡ͡b]. Even whenRwanda is pronounced[ɾwaːnda] rather than[ɾɡwaːnda], the onset is a sequence, not alabialized[ɾʷ].
Kinyarwanda uses 16 of theBantunoun classes. Sometimes these are grouped into 10 pairs so that most singular and plural forms of the same word are included in the same class. The table below shows the 16 noun classes and how they are paired in two commonly used systems.
All Kinyarwanda verbinfinitives begin withku- (morphed intok(w)- before vowels, and intogu- before stems beginning with avoiceless consonant due toDahl's Law). Toconjugate, the infinitive prefix is removed and replaced with a prefix agreeing with thesubject. Then atense marker can be inserted.
Singular
Plural
Corresp. Noun Class
before consonants
before vowels
Corresp. Noun Class
before consonants
before vowels
1st person
n-/m-
n-
tu-/du-
tw-
2nd person
u-
w-
mu-
mw-
I
1
a-
y-
2
ba-
b-
II
3
u-
w-
4
i-
y-
III
5
ri-
ry-
6
a-
y-
IV
7
ki-
cy-
8
bi-
by-
V
9
i-
y-
10
zi-
z-
VI
11
ru-
rw-
10
zi-
z-
VII
12
ka-
k-
13
tu-
tw-
VIII
14
bu-
bw-
16
bu-
bw-
IX
15
ku-
k(w)-
16
a-
y-
X
16
ha-
h-
16
ha-
h-
The class I prefixesy-/a- andba- correspond to the third person for persons. The personal prefixn- becomesm- before a labial sound (p, b, f, v), while personal prefixtu- becomesdu- under Dahl's Law.
Singular
Plural
Full pronoun
Subject prefix
Full pronoun
Subject prefix
1st person
njye(we)
n-/m-
mwe(bwe)
tu-/du-
2nd person
wowe
u-/w-
twe(bwe)
mu-/mw-
3rd person
we
a-/y-
bo
ba-
Every regular verb has three stems: the imperfective (ending in the morpheme-a), the perfective (ending in the morpheme-:ye, which may trigger a variety of morphophonological changes in the preceding segment) and the subjunctive (ending in the morpheme-e).
According to Botne (1983), a verb may belong to any of eight Aktionsart categories, which may be broadly grouped into stative and dynamic categories. In the immediate tense, dynamic verbs take the imperfective stem while stative verbs take the perfective stem, while both use the imperfective stem in the habitual or gnomic tense.
Simple tense/mood markers include the following:
With thepresent stem:
Present ('I do'):- (no infix)
Present Progressive ('I am doing'):-ra- (assimilates to-da- when preceded byn)
Habitual Past ('I used to do/was doing'):-a- plus-ga suffixed to the verb
Future ('I will do'):-za-
With thepast stem:
Polite Imperative ('Let me do'; 'please do'):- (no infix)
Perfect ('I have done/I did'):-a-
Near Past ('I just did'):-ra- (assimilates to-da- when preceded byn)
Preterite ('I did'):-ara-
Subjunctive ('that I do/did'):-za-
Object affixes corresponding to the noun classes of an object may be placed after the tense marker and before the verb stem:
Kinyarwanda employs the use of periphrasticcausatives, in addition to morphological causatives.
Theperiphrastic causatives use the verbs-teer- and-tum-, which meancause. With-teer-, the original subject becomes the object of the main clause, leaving the original verb in the infinitive (just like in English):[10]
girl she-PST-cause-ASPI-PST-write-ASP letters many
"The girl causedme to write many letters."
Derivational causatives use the instrumental marker-iish-. The construction is the same, but it is instrumental when the subject is inanimate and it is causative when the subject is animate:[13]
However, there can only be one animate direct object. If a sentence has two, one or both is deleted and understood from context.[14]
The suffix-iish- implies an indirect causation (similar to Englishhave in "I had him write a paper), while other causatives imply a direct causation (similar to Englishmake in "I made him write a paper").[15]
One of these more direct causation devices is the deletion of what is called a "neutral" morpheme-ik-, which indicates state or potentiality. Stems with the-ik- removed can take-iish, but the causation is less direct:[15]
-mének-
"be broken"
-mén-
"break"
-méneesh-
"have (something) broken"
-sáduk-
"be cut"
-sátur-
"cut"
-sátuz-
"have (something) cut"
Another direct causation maker is-y- which is used for some verbs:[16]
Original Thesis:Kimenyi, Alexandre (1976).A Relational Grammar of Kinyarwanda(PDF) (PhD dissertation). Los Angeles: University of California.Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 May 2017.
Brack, Matthias; Musoni, Marie-Goretti (2021).Wörterbuch Kinyarwanda–Deutsch. Mit einer Einführung in Sprache und Grammatik. Study Books of African Languages (in German). Vol. 25. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.ISBN978-3-89645-588-8.
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