Rendille (also known as Rendile, Randile) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch.[2]
The Ariaal sub-group of the Rendille, who are of mixed Nilotic and Cushitic descent, speak the Nilo-Saharan Samburu language of the Samburu Nilotes, near whom they live.[2][3]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ alveolar |
Retroflex | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n̪ | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | t̪ | tɕ | k | (q) | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | dʑ | g | ||||
| Fricative | f | s | x | ħ ~ ʕ | h | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Glide | w | j | |||||||
- /tɕ/ can be heard as [ɕ] by some speakers.
- Some speakers always pronounce /x/ as a uvular stop [q].
- [ʕ] can be heard as a free variant of /ħ/, or when /ħ/ is heard in intervocalic position.
- Voiced sounds become voiceless when in word-final position.
- /b/ can be pronounced as [p] when preceding /ħ/, or as a fricative [β] in intervocalic position.
- /r/ can also freely be devoiced as [r̥] in word-initial position, and is always heard as devoiced in word-final position.
- /d̪/ can freely be heard as an affricate [d̪ð], and can also be heard as a fricative [ð] in intervocalic position.
- /x/ can also be heard as an affricate [qχ] when following nasal sounds.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | o oː | |
| Open | a aː |
- Vowels /i, u, e, o/ are commonly heard as lax [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].
Notes
References
- Harold C. Fleming, "Baiso and Rendille: Somali Outliers", Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, 20 (1964), pp. 35–96.
- Antoinette Oomen. 1981. "Gender and Plurality in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:35-75.
- Steve Pillinger & Letiwa Galboran. 1999. A Rendille Dictionary, Including a Grammatical Outline and an English-Rendille Index. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 14. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
- Heine, Bernd. 1976. Notes on the Rendille Language. In Afrika und Übersee LIX. 176-223
- Günther Schlee. 1978. Sprachliche Studien zum Rendille. Hamburger Philologische Studien 46. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
- Ronald J. Sim. 1981. "Morphophonemics of the Verb in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:1-33.
