Kisi language (Tanzania)

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.

Not to be confused with Kissi language.
Kisi
Kikisi
Native toTanzania
Ethnicity18,000 Kisi (2001?)[1]
Native speakers
10,200 (2001)[2]
Niger–Congo
Language codes
ISO 639-3kiz
Glottologkisi1243[3]
G.67[4]
Linguasphere99-AUS-re

Phonology

Consonant phonemes in Kisi
Bialabial Labio-dental Alveolar Post alveolar/

palatal

 Velar Glottal
Aspirated voiceless

plosives

 pʰ tʰ kʰ
Voiced plosives b d ɟ ɡ
Prenasalised voised

plosive

 ᵐb ⁿd ᶮɟ ᵑɡ
Voiceless fricatives f s h
Voiced fricatives β ʝ ɣ
Voiceless affricatives tʃ
Nasals m n ɲ ŋ
Liquids 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

    References
    1. Kisi language (Tanzania) at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
    2. Kisi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    3. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kisi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
    4. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online


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