| Nyole | |
| Nativename: | Lunyole |
| States: | Uganda |
| Region: | Butaleja District |
| Speakers: | 340,000 |
| Ethnicity: | Banyole |
| Date: | 2002 census |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Southern Bantoid |
| Fam7: | Bantu |
| Fam8: | Northeast Bantu |
| Fam9: | Great Lakes Bantu |
| Fam10: | Masaba–Luhya (J.30) |
| Iso3: | nuj |
| Glotto: | nyol1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Nyole |
| Guthrie: | JE.35 |
| Notice: | IPA |
Nyole (also LoNyole, Lunyole, Nyuli) is a Bantu language spoken by the Banyole in Butaleja District, Uganda. There is 61% lexical similarity with a related but different Nyole language in Kenya.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| voiced prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮdʒ | ᵑg | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/~pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (w) | ||
Nyole has series of voiceless, voiced, and prenasalized stops. pronounced as //w// is labio-velar.
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a | ||
Nyole has an interesting development from Proto-Bantu *p → Nyole pronounced as //ŋ//. Schadeberg (1989) connects this sound change to rhinoglottophilia, where the sound change developed first as pronounced as /
This historical development results in so-called "crazy" alternations, like pronounced as //n/ + /ŋ// resulting in pronounced as //p// as in the following:
n-ŋuliira ("hear" stem form) : puliira "I hear"
n-ŋumula ("rest" stem form) : pumula "I rest"
In the above two words, when the first person singular subject prefix pronounced as //n-// is added to the stem starting with pronounced as //ŋ//, the initial consonant surfaces as pronounced as //p//. In other forms (like pronounced as //oxu-ŋuliira// "to hear" and pronounced as //oxu-ŋumula// "to rest"), the original stem-initial pronounced as //ŋ// can be seen.
| aa | b | bb | c | d | e | ee | f | g | h | i | ii | j | k | l | m | n | ny | ŋ | o | oo | p | r | s | t | u | uu | v | w | y | z |