Shubi language should not be confused with Subi language.
| Shubi | |
| Region: | Kagera Region in Tanzania |
| Ethnicity: | Shubi people |
| Speakers: | 153,000 |
| Date: | 1987 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Bantu |
| Fam7: | Northeast Bantu |
| Fam8: | Great Lakes Bantu |
| Fam9: | Ruanda-Rundi |
| Fam10: | Hangaza-Shubi |
| Iso3: | suj |
| Glotto: | shub1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Shubi |
| Guthrie: | JD.64 |
| Notice: | IPA |
Shubi is a Bantu language spoken by the Shubi people in north-western Tanzania. It may use labiodental plosives pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ (sometimes written ȹ, ȸ) as phonemes, rather than as allophones of pronounced as //p, b//. Peter Ladefoged wrote:
We have heard labiodental stops made by a Shubi speaker whose teeth were sufficiently close together to allow him to make an airtight labiodental closure. For this speaker this sound was clearly in contrast with a bilabial stop; but we suspect that the majority of Shubi speakers make the contrast one of bilabial stop versus labial-labiodental affricate (i.e. bilabial stop closure followed by a labiodental fricative), rather than bilabial versus labiodental stop.[1]