Bari language

Last updated
Bari
Barian
Karo, Kutuk
Region South Sudan
EthnicityKaro peoples
Native speakers
L1: 770,000 (2017) [1]
L2: 180,000 (2013) [1]
Dialects
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 bfa
Glottolog bari1283   Barian
bari1284   Bari

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.

Contents

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.

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:

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal mnɲŋ
Plosive voicelessptkʔ
voicedbdɟg
Implosive ɓɗʼj
Fricative s
Rhotic r
Approximant wlj

Vowels

Bari and their kin, Kakwa have a cross-height[ clarification needed ] vowel-harmony system. [2] [3]

+ATR -ATR
Front Central Back Front Central Back
Close iuɪʊ
Mid eoɛɔ
Open ɑ̘a

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.

Bari alphabet
Uppercase A B ʼB D ʼD E G J I Y ʼY K L M N Ŋ Ny O Ö P R S T U W
Lowercase a b ʼb d ʼd e g j i y ʼy k l m n ŋ ny o ö p r s t u w
Bari special characters
UppercaseŊÖ
Lowercaseŋö
Alternativesngo
Uppercase Unicode (hexadecimal)014A00D6
Lowercase Unicode (hexadecimal)014B00F6
Unicode Character Code ChartLatin Extended ALatin-1

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References

  1. 1 2 Bari at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. SIL Bibliography: Yokwe and Hall 1981
  3. Hout, Katherine (2019). Dominance-as-markedness: evidence from Bari. Studies in African Linguistics, Volume 48, Number 2, 2019: University of California San Diego. pp. 206–224.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

General References

  1. Bari Language, Sudan Primer: Sillabari Ko Kutuk Na Bari. The Catholic Press Institute. Juba, Sudan.
  2. Owen, R.C.R. Bari grammar and vocabulary. 1908. OCLC: 25040516
  3. Spagnolo, Lorenzo M. Bari grammar. 1933. Verona, Missioni Africane.. OCLC: 34898784
  4. Vossen, Rainer. The Eastern Nilotes. (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, 9.). 1982. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
  5. Yokwe, Eluzai. The tonal grammar of Bari. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1987.