Lendu
Balendru
Native toCongo (DRC)
EthnicityLendu, Hema, Alur, Okebu
Native speakers
(760,000, including Ndrulo cited 1996)[1]
Dialects
  • Badha
Language codes
ISO 639-3led
Glottologlend1245
Linguasphere03-BAD

The Lendu language is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Balendru, an ethno-linguistic agriculturalist group residing in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the area west and northwest of Lake Albert, specifically the Ituri Region of Orientale Province. It is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu and the Hema was the basis of the Ituri conflict.[2]

Besides the Balendru, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu. In Uganda, the Lendu tribe live in the districts of Nebbi and Zombo districts, northwest of Lake Albert.[citation needed]

Names

Ethnologue gives Bbadha as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists Badha as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languages, available from his website and dated 2012, lists Lendu/Badha.

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Near-close ɪ ʊ
Mid ɛ ə ɔ
Open a

Consonants

Labial Dental/
Alveolar 		Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Labial-
velar 		Glottal
central sibilant
Nasal m n ɲ
Stop/
Affricate 		voiceless p t t͡s t͡ʃ k k͡p ʔ
voiced b d d͡z d͡ʒ ɟ ɡ ɡ͡b
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᶮd͡ʒ ᵑɡ
vl. implosive ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊
vd. implosive ɓ ɗ ʄ
Fricative voiceless f θ s ʃ h
voiced v ð z ʒ
prenasal ⁿz
Rhotic r
Approximant plain l j w
glottalized ʼw

Implosives

Demolin (1995)[3] posits that Lendu has voiceless implosives, /ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊/ (/ƥ ƭ ƈ/). However, Goyvaerts (1988)[4] had described these as creaky-voiced implosives /ɓ̰ ɗ̰ ʄ̰/, as in Hausa, contrasting with a series of modally voiced implosives /ɓ ɗ ʄ/ as in Kalabari, and Ladefoged judges that this seems to be a more accurate description.[5]

References

  1. ^ Lendu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "AFRICA | 101 Last Tribes - Lendu people". www.101lasttribes.com. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
  3. ^ Demolin, Didier. 1995. The phonetics and phonology of glottalized consonants in Lendu. In Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia (eds.), Phonology and Phonetic Evidence. Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV, 368-385. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  4. ^ Goyvaerts, Didier L. 1988. Glottalized Consonants a New Dimension. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 3. 97-102. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  5. ^ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 87–89. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
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