Gwere language

Gwere, or Lugwere, is the language spoken by the Gwere people (Bagwere), a Bantu people found in the eastern part of Uganda. It has a close dialectical resemblance to Soga and Ganda, which neighbour the Gwere.

Gwere
(O)lugwere
Native to	Uganda
Region	Eastern Region
Ethnicity	Bagwere
Native speakers	410,000 (2002 census)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Great Lakes Bantu West nyanza North Nyanza Gwere
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gwr
Glottolog	gwer1238
Guthrie code	JE.17[2]

Gwere, though closest in dialect to its eastern neighbours, also has many words similar to those used by tribes from the western part of Uganda. For example, musaiza (a man) resembles mushiiza used by the western languages with the same meaning.

The Ruli, a somewhat distant people living in central Uganda, speak a language that has almost exactly the same words used in Lugwere, but with a very different pronunciation.

Phonology

Consonants

Gwere has 20 consonant phonemes.^[3]

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive/ Affricate	p b		t d	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	k g
Fricative	β	f v	s z
Nasal	m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant	w		l	j

Vowels

Gwere has ten vowel phonemes, 5 short and 5 long.^[4]

	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː
Mid	e eː	o oː
Open		ɑ ɑː

Orthography and alphabet

The Gwere alphabet has 31 letters.^[5][6]

• a - a - [ɑ]
• aa - aa - [ɑː]
• b - ba - [β]
• bb - bba - [b]
• c - ca - [c]
• d - da - [d]
• e - e - [e]
• ee - ee - [eː]
• f - fa - [f]
• g - ga - [g]
• i - i - [i]
• ii - ii - [iː]
• j - ja - [ɟ]
• k - ka - [k]
• l - la - [l]
• m - ma - [m]
• n - na - [n]
• ny - nya - [ɲ]
• ŋ - ŋa - [ŋ]
• o - o - [o]
• oo - oo - [oː]
• p - pa - [p]
• r - ra - [r]
• s - sa - [s]
• t - ta - [t]
• u - u - [u]
• uu - uu - [uː]
• v - va - [v]
• w - wa - [w]
• y - ya - [j]
• z - za - [z]

References

1. Gwere at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. Nzogi 2006, p. 10.
4. Nzogi 2006, p. 12.
5. Ager.
6. Nzogi & Diprose 2012a.

Bibliography

• Ager, Simon. "Gwere". Omniglot.
• Akinlabi, Akinbiyi (1995). Theoretical approaches to African linguistics. Africa World Press. ISBN 0-86543-463-8.
• Nzogi, Richard Kijjali (2006-06-15). Lugwere Phonology Statement (PDF). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-01-16.
• Nzogi, Richard; Diprose, Martin (2012a). "The Lugwere Alphabet". Lugwere Dictionary. Entebbe, Uganda: Lunyole Language Association.

Further reading

• Kagaya, Ryohei (2005). "Gūere-go no meishi to meishishūshoku-go no onchō katachi bunseki" グウェレ語の名詞と名詞修飾語の音調形分析 [A tonal analysis of nouns of the Gwere language]. Journal of Asian and African Studies. 69: 123–176. doi:10.15026/20216.
• Kayaga, Ryohei (2006). A Gwere Vocabulary. Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 9784872979282.
• Ndoboli, Titus (1994). The tense system of Lugwere (MA thesis). Kampala: Makerere University.
• Nzogi, Richard (2009). Disambiguating grammatical tone in Gwere orthography by using clarifying words (PDF). SIL electronic working papers (SILEWP). Vol. 2009–003. SIL International. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-03-22.
• Nzogi, Richard; Diprose, Martin (2012b). "EKideero ky'oLugwere Lugwere Dictionary / Lugwere- English with English Index". Entebbe, Uganda: Lunyole Language Association.
• Schoenbrun, David Lee (1997). The Historical Reconstruction of Great Lakes Bantu Cultural Vocabulary: Etymologies and Distributions. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. ISBN 9783896450951.