- 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=runKirundi (also written "Rundi") is a
Bantu language (D62 in Guthrie's classification) spoken by some 6 million people inBurundi and adjacent parts ofTanzania andCongo-Kinshasa , as well as inUganda . 84% of the speakers areHutu , 15% areTutsi and 1% areTwa .Kirundi is closely related to Kinyarwanda, the main language of neighbouring country
Rwanda and to Giha, a language spoken in westernTanzania . Kirundi and Kinyarwanda are mutually intelligible.The inhabitants of
Rwanda andBurundi belong to three differentethnic group s: Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa (apygmy 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]
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