Kirundi

language
name=Kirundi
states=Burundi
region=Central Africa
speakers=4.6 million
familycolor=Niger-Congo
fam2=Atlantic-Congo
fam3=Volta-Congo
fam4=Benue-Congo
fam5=Bantoid
fam6=Southern Bantoid
fam7=Narrow Bantu
fam8=Central
nation=Burundi
iso1=rn|iso2=run|iso3=run

Kirundi (also written "Rundi") is a Bantu language (D62 in Guthrie's classification) spoken by some 6 million people in Burundi and adjacent parts of Tanzania and Congo-Kinshasa, as well as in Uganda. 84% of the speakers are Hutu, 15% are Tutsi and 1% are Twa.

Kirundi is closely related to Kinyarwanda, the main language of neighbouring country Rwanda and to Giha, a language spoken in western Tanzania. Kirundi and Kinyarwanda are mutually intelligible.

The inhabitants of Rwanda and Burundi belong to three different ethnic groups: Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa (a pygmy people). The fact that these ethnic groups share the same language is assumed to be the result of the Bahutu outnumbering the latter two groups (see Bahutu for a more complete historical perspective).

Kirundi is frequently cited as a language where Meeussen's rule, a rule describing a certain pattern of tonal change in Bantu languages, is active.

References

* Meeussen, A.E. (1959) "Essai de grammaire Rundi" Annales du Musée Royal du Congo Belge, Série Sciences Humaines - Linguistique, vol. 24. Tervuren

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=run Ethnologue on Rundi]
* [http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/RwandaRundi PanAfrican L10n page on Kirundi...]
* [http://cecilia.ls.fi.upm.es/~jmartinez/wiki/index.php/Learning_Kirundi Learning Kirundi] (in Spanish)
* [http://amajambo.ijuru.com Online Kirundi/English dictionary]