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Bari language

{{Short description|Nilotic language spoken in South Sudan and Uganda}}

{{distinguish|Barí language|Bari language (Ubangian)}}

{{Infobox language

| name = Bari

| altname = Barian

| nativename = Karo, Kutuk

| region = South Sudan

| ethnicity = Karo peoples

| speakers = L1: {{sigfig|766,000|2}}

| date = 2017

| ref = e25

| speakers2 = L2: {{sigfig|175,000|2}} (2013)

| speakers_label = Speakers

| script = Latin

| familycolor = Nilo-Saharan

| fam2 = Eastern Sudanic

| fam3 = Southern Eastern

| fam4 = Nilotic

| fam5 = Eastern

| dia1 = Kakwa

| dia2 = Kuku

| dia3 = Mandari

| iso3 = bfa

| glotto = bari1283

| glottoname = Barian

| glotto2 = bari1284

| glottoname2 = Bari

}}

Bari is the Nilotic language of the Karo people, spoken over large areas of Central Equatoria state in South Sudan, across the northwest corner of Uganda, and into the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bari is spoken by several distinct tribes: the Bari people themselves, the Pojulu, Kakwa, Nyangwara, Mundari, and Kuku. Each has its own dialect. The language is therefore sometimes called Karo or Kutuk ('mother tongue') rather than Bari.

Bari is a tone language. It has vowel harmony, subject–verb–object word order, and agglutinative verbal morphology with some suppletion. A very competent dictionary and grammar were published in the 1930s, but are very difficult to find today. More recently, a dissertation has been published on Bari tonal phonology, and another dissertation on Bari syntax is available.

Dialects

Dialects are:

  • Bari proper (Beri)
  • Pöjulu (Pajulu, Fadjulu, Fajelu, Madi)
  • Kakwa (Kakua, Kwakwak) [radio broadcasts in Uganda]
  • Nyangbara (Nyangwara, Nyambara)
  • Mandari (Mondari, Mundari, Chir, Kir, Shir)
  • Kuku
  • Nyepu (Nyefu, Nyepo, Nypho, Ngyepu)
  • Ligo (Liggo)

Phonology

= Consonants =

This table is based on Spagnolo (1933). Spagnolo, Lorenzo M. Bari grammar. 1933. Verona, Missioni Africane.. OCLC: 34898784

class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! colspan="2" |

!Labial

!Alveolar

!Palatal

!Velar

!Glottal

colspan="2" |Nasal

|{{IPAlink|m}}

|{{IPAlink|n}}

|{{IPAlink|ɲ}}

|{{IPAlink|ŋ}}

|

rowspan="2" |Plosive

!{{Small|voiceless}}

|{{IPAlink|p}}

|{{IPAlink|t}}

|

|{{IPAlink|k}}

|{{IPAlink|ʔ}}

{{Small|voiced}}

|{{IPAlink|b}}

|{{IPAlink|d}}

|{{IPAlink|ɟ}}

|{{IPAlink|g}}

|

colspan="2" |Implosive

|{{IPAlink|ɓ}}

|{{IPAlink|ɗ}}

|{{IPAlink|ʄ}}

|

|

colspan="2" |Fricative

|

|{{IPAlink|s}}

|

|

|({{IPAlink|h}})

colspan="2" |Rhotic

|

|{{IPAlink|r}}

|

|

|

colspan="2" |Approximant

|{{IPAlink|w}}

|{{IPAlink|l}}

|{{IPAlink|j}}

|

|

  • /{{IPAlink|ɟ}}/ may also be heard as an affricate [{{IPAlink|dʒ}}] in free variation.
  • /{{IPAlink|l}}/ can be heard as a flap [{{IPAlink|ɾ}}] when in between /{{IPAlink|u}}/.

= Vowels =

Bari and their kin, the Kakwa, have a cross-height{{Clarify|date=June 2011}} vowel-harmony system.[http://www.ethnologue.org/show_work.asp?id=15871 SIL Bibliography: Yokwe and Hall 1981]{{Cite book |last=Hout |first=Katherine |title=Dominance-as-markedness: evidence from Bari |publisher=University of California San Diego |year=2019 |location=Studies in African Linguistics, Volume 48, Number 2, 2019 |pages=206–224}}

class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! rowspan="2" |

! colspan="3" |+ATR

! colspan="3" |Advanced and retracted tongue root

ATR
Front

!Central

!Back

!Front

!Central

!Back

align="center"

!Close

|{{IPAlink|i}}

|

|{{IPAlink|u}}

|{{IPAlink|ɪ}}

|

|{{IPAlink|ʊ}}

Mid

|{{IPAlink|e}}

|

|{{IPAlink|o}}

|{{IPAlink|ɛ}}

|

|{{IPAlink|ɔ}}

align="center"

!Open

|

|{{IPAlink|ɑ̘}}

|

|

|{{IPAlink|a}}

|

Orthography

The Bari alphabet is used by the Bari, Kakwa, Pojulu, and Kuku in South Sudan. There are four digraphs, ʼB, ʼD, ʼY and Ny, and the letter eng, Ŋ.

+ Bari alphabet

! Uppercase

|A

BʼBDʼDEGJIYʼYKLMNŊNyOÖPRSTUW
Lowercase

|a||b||ʼb||d||ʼd||e||g||j||i||y||ʼy||k||l||m||n||ŋ||ny||o||ö||p||r||s||t||u||w

+ Bari special characters

! Uppercase

|Ŋ

Ö
Lowercase

|ŋ||ö

Alternatives

|ng||o

Uppercase Unicode (hexadecimal)

|014A

||00D6

Lowercase Unicode (hexadecimal)

|014B

||00F6

Unicode Character Code Chart

|Latin Extended A

||Latin-1

References

{{reflist}}

=General References=

  1. Bari Language, Sudan Primer: Sillabari Ko Kutuk Na Bari. The Catholic Press Institute. Juba, Sudan.
  2. Owen, R.C.R. [https://archive.org/details/barigrammarvocab00owenrich Bari grammar and vocabulary]. 1908. OCLC: 25040516
  3. Spagnolo, Lorenzo M. Bari grammar. 1933. Verona, Missioni Africane. OCLC: 34898784
  4. Vossen, Rainer. The Eastern Nilotes. (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, 9.). 1982. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
  5. Yokwe, Eluzai. The tonal grammar of Bari. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1987.

External links

{{incubator|bfa}}

  • [http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Bari/index.html Kitap Kwakwaset] The Book of Common Prayer in Bari (1953)
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20090215100524/http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/african/

{{Languages of South Sudan}}

{{Languages of Uganda}}

{{Eastern Sudanic languages}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bari Language}}

Category:Agglutinative languages

Category:Eastern Nilotic languages

Category:Latin alphabets

Category:Languages of South Sudan

Category:Languages of Uganda

Category:Vowel-harmony languages