Kisi language (Tanzania)

Not to be confused with Kissi language or Gusii language.

Kisi is a Bantu language of Tanzania. Though only half or so of the Kisi people speak the language, use is vigorous where it is still spoken.

Kisi
Kikisi
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	15,000 Kisi (2012)[1]
Native speakers	11,000 (2012)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Bena–Kinga (G60) Kisi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kiz
Glottolog	kisi1243
Guthrie code	G.67[2]
Linguasphere	99-AUS-re

Phonology

Consonant phonemes in Kisi

		Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ
	prenasalised	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s			h
	voiced	β		ʝ	ɣ
Affricative				tʃ
Liquid			l

Consonant phonemes in Kisi that occur only through morphological interaction

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Post alveolar/ palatal	Velar
Prenasalised voiceless plosives	mph		nth		ᵑkh
Prenasalised voiceless fricatives		ᶬf	ns
Prenasalized voiceless affricatives				ntʃ
Aspirated nasals	mh		nh	ɲh

Other phonemes:

• [ɾ] and [l] are in a free variation.
• [w] and [j] are not included in a phoneme chart in Kisi because they only occur as glide insertion between historically or morphologically adjacent vowels. [w] does not occur otherwise. For some speakers, [j] occurs as a free variant of [ʝ] which is considered incorrect by other speakers.

Vowels phoneme in Kisi

	Front	Central	Back
High - degree 1	i i:		u u:
High - degree 2	ɪ ɪ:		ʊ ʊ:
Mid	e e:		o o:
Low		a a:

Contrastive and obligatory length is marked with /:/. This does not necessarily reflect a difference in the length of production.

Diphthongs in Kisi

Symbol	Example words	Meaning
[e]-[i] [bei]	Swahili: bei	'price'
[a]-[o] [ᵑɡao]	Swahili: ngao	'shield'

Swahili: bei, and Swahili: ngao - These Swahili words have been borrowed into Kisi and pronounced with a diphthong in Kisi