Kumam dialect

Kumam is a language of the Southern Lwoo group^[3] spoken by the Kumam people of Uganda. It is estimated that the Kumam dialect has 82 percent lexical similarity with the Acholi dialect, 81 percent with the Lango dialect.^[4]

Kumam
Ikokolemu
Native to	Uganda
Region	Teso District
Ethnicity	Kumam people
Native speakers	270,000 (2014 census)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic? Southern Easterm Nilotic Western Luo Southern Lango–Kumam[2] Kumam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kdi
Glottolog	kuma1275

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stop	voiceless	p	t	c	k
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	g
Fricative		(f)[1]	(s)[1]
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Semivowel		w		j

1. Fricatives occur only in borrowed words.

Gemination can occur due to morphological processes, for example del 'skin' + -ná → dellá 'my skin'.^[3]

Vowels

Kumam has ten vowels, with a vowel harmony system based on presence or absence of advanced tongue root (ATR).^[3]

	[-ATR]		[+ATR]
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	ɪ		i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ	e	o
Open		a		ɑ

Vowels have no distinction in length, except due to some morphological processes, for instance compensatory lengthening that occurs when applying the transitive infinitive suffix -nɔ: ted- 'cook' + -ne → *ted-do → teedo 'to cook'.^[3]

Tone

There exist six tones: low, high, falling, rising, downstep high and double downstep high.^[3]

Tone	Transcription
low	[à]
high	[á]
falling	[â]
rising	[ǎ]
downstep high	[!á]
double downstep high	[!!á]

Tone sandhi

Kumam exhibits tone sandhi in two ways. The first is the spreading of high tonemes rightwards to the following words beginning with a low tonemes, as in ɑbúké 'eyelash' + waŋ 'eye' → abúké wâŋ 'eyelash'. The second is when a floating high toneme is followed by a word beginning in a low toneme, where the floating tone is assigned to the following word and not the word bearing the floating tone: cogó 'bone' + rac 'bad' → cogo râc 'The bone is bad.'^[3]

Grammar

Verbs

Valency

Transitive stems are constructed by applying the suffix -ɔ (yɛŋ 'be satisfied' → yɛŋ-ɔ 'satisfy'). A subset of transitive verbs can have the suffix -ɛ́rɛ́ applied to form what Hieda calls a 'middle form' (nɛ́n-ɔ → nɛ́!nɛ́rɛ́ 'be seen').^[3]

Basic lexicon

Hello – yoga
How are you? –Itiye benyo (singular), Itiyenu benyo (plural)
Fine, and you? – Atiye ber, arai bon yin?
Fine – Atiye ber or just ber
What is your name? – Nying in en Ngai?
My name is ... – Nying ango en ...
Name --- Nying
Nice to see you. --- Apwoyo Neno in (also: Apwoyo Neno wun)
See you again --- Oneno bobo
Book – Itabo
Because – Pi Ento

The first sentence in the bible can be translated as I ya gege, Rubanga ocweo wi polo kede piny ("In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth" ).