Kumam dialect explained

Kumam
Nativename:Ikokolemu
States:Uganda
Region:Teso District
Ethnicity:Kumam people
Date:2014 census
Ref:e22
Familycolor:Nilo-Saharan
Fam2:Eastern Sudanic?
Fam3:Kir–Abbaian?
Fam4:Nilotic
Fam5:Western Nilotic
Fam6:Luo
Fam7:Southern
Fam8:Lango–Kumam[1]
Iso3:kdi
Glotto:kuma1275
Glottorefname:Kumam

Kumam is a language of the Southern Lwoo group 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.[2]

Phonology

Consonants

!Bilabial!Alveolar!Palatal!Velar
Stopvoicelesspronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
voicedpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Fricative(pronounced as /ink/)(pronounced as /ink/)
Lateralpronounced as /ink/
Trillpronounced as /ink/
Nasalpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Semivowelpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/

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

Vowels

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

! colspan="2"
[-ATR][+ATR]
FrontBackFrontBack
Closepronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Midpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Openpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/

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'.

Tone

There exist six tones: low, high, falling, rising, downstep high and double downstep high.

!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.'

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-ɔnɛ́!nɛ́rɛ́ 'be seen').

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").

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Glottolog 4.8 - Southern Lwoo . 2023-07-10 . 2023-11-20 . . Hammarström . Harald . https://web.archive.org/web/20231121024259/https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/sout2831 . 2023-11-21 . live . . Harald Hammarström . Forkel . Robert . . 10.5281/zenodo.7398962 . Haspelmath . Martin . Martin Haspelmath . Bank . Sebastian . free.
  2. Web site: Kumam. 2020-09-28. Ethnologue. en.
  3. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.001.0001 . Kumam . The Oxford Handbook of African Languages . 2020 . Hieda . Osamu. 611–629 .