Ngiti language

Ngiti
South Lendu
Ndruna
Native to	Congo (DRC)
Ethnicity	Ngiti people
Native speakers	(100,000 cited 1991) [1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Central Sudanic Eastern Lendu Ngiti
Language codes
ISO 639-3	niy
Glottolog	ngit1239

Ngiti is a Central Sudanic language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Speakers also refer to themselves as "Southern Lendu", and in talking to outsiders, can say they speak "Kilendu". There are Ngiti communities concentrated south of Bunia.

Phonology

Consonant Phonemes ^{[2] : 31}

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Labial-velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ɲ
Plosive	voiced	b	d	ɖ ɽ	ɟ	ɡ	ɡ͡b
	voiceless	p	t	ʈ ɽ	c	k	k͡p
	prenasalised	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶯɖɽ	ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ	ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡b
Implosive	voiced	ɓ		ᶑ	ʄ
	voiceless	ɓ̥		ᶑ̥	ʄ̥			ʔ
Affricate	voiced	b͡v	d͡z
	voiceless	p͡f	t͡s
Fricative	voiced	v	z
	voiceless	f	s					h
	prenasalised	ᵐv	ⁿz
Approximant		β	l	r	j		w

Vowel Phonemes ^{[2] : 55}

		Front	Back
High	+ATR	i	u
	-ATR	ɪ	ʊ
Mid	+ATR	e	o
	-ATR	ɛ	ɔ
Low		a

Numeral system

Ngiti is reported to have a base-32 number system with base-4 cycles. ^[3] The usage of base-10 number system is also used. The following is a list of some Ngiti numerals in base-32.

Number	Numeral	Meaning
1	atdí
2	ɔyɔ
3	ɨ̀bhʉ
4	ɨ̀fɔ
5	imbo
6	aza
7	àrʉ̀bhʉ̀	8-1
8	àrʉ̀
9	àrʉ̀gyètdi	8+1
10	ɨdrɛ
11	otsi-vi	12-1
12	otsi
13	otsi dɔ̀ atdí	12+1
14	otsi dɔ̀ ɔyɔ	12+2
15	ɔpɨ-vi	16-1
16	ɔpɨ
17	ɔpɨ dɔ̀ atdí	16+1
18	ɔpɨ dɔ̀ ɔyɔ	16+2
19	àbà-vi	20-1
20	àbà
24	àròtsí
28	àdzòro
32	wǎdhɨ̀
64	ɔyɔ wǎdhɨ̀	2×32
96	ɨ̀bhʉ wǎdhɨ̀	3×32
128	ɨ̀fɔ wǎdhɨ̀	4×32

Notes and references

1. Ngiti at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Kutsch Lojenga, Constance (1994). Ngiti: a Central-Sudanic language of Zaire (PhD). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
3. Hammarström, Harald (2006), "Rarities in Numeral Systems", Proceedings of Rara & Rarissima Conference (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-08-19, retrieved 2009-10-23