Lendu language

The Lendu language is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Balendru, an ethno-linguistic agriculturalist group residing in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the area west and northwest of Lake Albert, specifically the Ituri Province. It is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu and the Hema was the basis of the Ituri conflict.

Besides the Balendru, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu. In Uganda, the Lendu tribe live in the districts of Nebbi and Zombo districts, northwest of Lake Albert.

Names

Ethnologue gives Bbadha as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists Badha as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languages, available from his website and dated 2012, lists Lendu/Badha.

Phonology

Vowels

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

!Front

!Central

!Back

!Close

|- align="center"

!Near-close

!Mid

|- align="center"

!Open

Consonants

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! rowspan="2" |Labial

! colspan="2" |Dental/<br>Alveolar

! rowspan="2" |Post-<br>alveolar

! rowspan="2" |Palatal

! rowspan="2" |Velar

! rowspan="2" |Labial-<br>velar

! rowspan="2" |Glottal

! colspan="2" |Nasal

| ()

! rowspan="5" |Stop/<br>Affricate

! rowspan="3" |Fricative

! colspan="2" |Rhotic

! rowspan="2" |Approximant

is mainly heard as an allophone of when preceding velar consonants.

Implosives

Demolin (1995) posits that Lendu has voiceless implosives, (). However, Goyvaerts (1988) had described these as creaky-voiced implosives , as in Hausa, contrasting with a series of modally voiced implosives as in Kalabari, and Ladefoged judges that this seems to be a more accurate description.

Grammar

Like many Central Sudanic languages, Lendu:

Uses tone distinctions
Has noun class-like system
Uses agglutinative morphology
Follows Subject- Verb- Object word order

Writing system

Lendu is primarily an oral language, though:

latin- based orthographies have been developed
Religious and educational materials exist
Bible translations have been produced

Sociolinguistic status

Language vitality: Vigorous
Main usage: Rural communities
Written materials: Limited but growing
Education use: Minimal

References

Kutsch-Lojenga, Constance. 1989. The Secret behind Vowelless Syllables in Lendu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 11. 115–126. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Tucker, Archibald N. 1940. Lendu. In The Eastern Sudanic Languages: Volume I, 380–418. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trifkovic, Mirjana. 1977. Tone preserving vowel reduction in Lendu. Studies in African Linguistics 8. 121–125.