| Oluʼbo | |
|---|---|
| Lolubo | |
| Native to | South Sudan |
| Ethnicity | Oluʼbo |
| Native speakers | 33,000 (2017) |
| Language family | Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Writing system | Latin |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | lul |
| Glottolog | olub1238 |
Oluʼbo or Lolubo is a Central Sudanic language spoken by 33,000 Oluʼbo people in Southern Sudan.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Labial- velar |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | |||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t̪ | tʃ | ʈ | k | kp | ʔ | ||
| voiced | b | d̪ | dʒ | ɖ | g | gb | ||||
| prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd̪ | ⁿdʒ | ᶯɖ | ᵑg | ᵑᵐgb | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | |||||||
| voiced | v | z | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||||
Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ |
| Close-mid | e | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ |
| Open | a |
Vowels form two vowel harmony sets, based on advanced and retracted tongue root. The group is /ɪ, ɛ, ɔ, ʊ/, and the group is /i, e, o, u/. /a/ is phonetically but is found in roots of both sets.
There is a tenth vowel quality [ɤ], which only occurs after /u/. When /u/ and [ɤ] are in separate morphemes, [ɤ] is in free variation with [o].
Tones
Oluʼbo has high /˦/, mid /˧/, and low /˨/ tones.There are also six compound tones, low-mid /˨˧/, low-high /˨˦/, mid-low /˧˨/, mid-high /˧˦/, high-low /˦˨/, and high-mid /˦˧/.
Notes
- Oluʼbo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- Andersen 1987, p. 45.
- ^ Andersen 1987, p. 40.
- Andersen 1987, p. 41.
- Andersen 1987, p. 44.
- Andersen 1987, p. 48.
References
- Andersen, Torben (1987). "An outline of Lulubo phonology". Studies in African Linguistics. 18: 39–65. doi:10.32473/sal.v18i1.107478.
| Languages of South Sudan | |
|---|---|
| Official language | |
| Indigenous languages | |
| Main foreign languages | |
| Central Sudanic languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bongo–Bagirmi |
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| Birri–Kresh |
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| Lendu–Mangbetu |
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| Mimi-D? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Italics indicate extinct languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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