| Budu | |
| Nativename: | Ɨbʉdhʉ |
| States: | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Region: | Orientale Province |
| Ethnicity: | Budu |
| Speakers: | 180,000 |
| Date: | 1991 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam4: | Southern Bantoid |
| Fam5: | Bantu (Zone D.30) |
| Fam6: | Nyali (Budu–Ndaka) |
| Iso3: | buu |
| Glotto: | budu1250 |
| Glottorefname: | Budu |
| Guthrie: | D.332 |
Budu (Ɨbʉdhʉ) is a Bantu language spoken by the Budu people in the Wamba Territory in the Orientale Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its orthography uses the special characters ɨ, ʉ, ɛ and ɔ, as well as modifier letters colon ꞉ and equal sign ꞊ for grammatical tone, marking past and future tense, respectively.
A variety of this language is called Matta and is spoken locally both north and south of Maboma.
| Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) palatal | Velar | Labio- velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | ||||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡ɕ | k͡p | |||||
| voiced | d͡ʑ | ɡ͡b | ||||||
| prenasal | ᶮd͡ʑ | ᵑᵐɡ͡b | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||||
| voiced | v | z | ||||||
| prenasal | ᶬv | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Approximant | (l) | j | w | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | ||
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | ||
| Close-mid | e | o | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Open | a |