Bari language

Nilotic language spoken in South Sudan and Uganda From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bari is the Nilotic language of the Karo people, spoken over large areas of Central Equatoria state in South Sudan, across the northwest corner of Uganda, and into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bari is spoken by several distinct tribes: the Bari people themselves, the Pojulu, Kakwa, Nyangwara, Mundari, and Kuku. Each has its own dialect. The language is therefore sometimes called Karo or Kutuk ('mother tongue') rather than Bari.

EthnicityKaro peoples
SpeakersL1: 770,000 (2017)[1]
L2: 180,000 (2013)[1]
Quick facts Region, Ethnicity ...
Bari
Barian
Karo, Kutuk
RegionSouth Sudan
EthnicityKaro peoples
SpeakersL1: 770,000 (2017)[1]
L2: 180,000 (2013)[1]
Dialects
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3bfa
Glottologbari1283  Barian
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Bari is a tone language. It has vowel harmony, subject–verb–object word order, and agglutinative verbal morphology with some suppletion. A very competent dictionary and grammar were published in the 1930s, but are very difficult to find today. More recently, a dissertation has been published on Bari tonal phonology, and another dissertation on Bari syntax is available.

Dialects

Dialects are:

  • Bari proper (Beri)
  • Pöjulu (Pajulu, Fadjulu, Fajelu, Madi)
  • Kakwa (Kakua, Kwakwak) [radio broadcasts in Uganda]
  • Nyangbara (Nyangwara, Nyambara)
  • Mandari (Mondari, Mundari, Chir, Kir, Shir)
  • Kuku
  • Nyepu (Nyefu, Nyepo, Nypho, Ngyepu)
  • Ligo (Liggo)

Phonology

Consonants

This table is based on Spagnolo (1933).[2]

More information Labial, Alveolar ...
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  • /ɟ/ may also be heard as an affricate [] in free variation.
  • /l/ can be heard as a flap [ɾ] when in between /u/.

Vowels

Bari and their kin, the Kakwa, have a cross-height[clarification needed] vowel-harmony system.[3][4]

More information +ATR, -ATR ...
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Orthography

The Bari alphabet is used by the Bari, Kakwa, Pojulu, and Kuku in South Sudan. There are four digraphs, ʼB, ʼD, ʼY and Ny, and the letter eng, Ŋ.

More information Uppercase, Lowercase ...
Bari alphabet
Uppercase ABʼBDʼDEGJIYʼYKLMNŊNyOÖPRSTUW
Lowercase abʼbdʼdegjiyʼyklmnŋnyoöprstuw
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More information Uppercase, Lowercase ...
Bari special characters
Uppercase ŊÖ
Lowercase ŋö
Alternatives ngo
Uppercase Unicode (hexadecimal) 014A 00D6
Lowercase Unicode (hexadecimal) 014B 00F6
Unicode Character Code Chart Latin Extended A Latin-1
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References

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