


The realization of tones in Kinyarwanda is influenced by a complex set of phonological rules.Įxcept in a few morphological contexts, the sequences 'ki' and 'ke' may be pronounced interchangeably as and or and according to speaker's preference. Like many Bantu languages, it has a two-way contrast between high and low tones (low-tone syllables may be analyzed as toneless). The table below gives the vowel sounds of Kinyarwanda. Consonants in parentheses are allophones.The table below gives the consonants of Kinyarwanda. See also: Rwanda-Rundi § Comparison of Kinyarwanda and Kirundi Consonants The organization attempted an orthographic reform in 2014, but it was met with pushback due to their perceived top-down and political nature, among other reasons. In 2010, the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC) was established to help promote and sustain Kinyarwanda. Kinyabwishya and Kinyamulenge are mutually intelligible dialects spoken in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of neighbouring DR Congo. The mutually intelligible Kirundi dialect is the national language of neighbouring Burundi. Kinyarwanda is universal among the native hearing population of Rwanda. Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is the national language of Rwanda and a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is spoken in Burundi and adjacent parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda (where there is a dialect known as Rufumbira or Urufumbira) and Tanzania. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.
