Kisi language (Tanzania)
Kisi is a Bantu language of Tanzania. Though only half or so of the Kisi people speak the language, use is vigorous where it is still spoken.
Phonology
| Bialabial | Labio-dental | Alveolar | Post alveolar/ palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Aspirated voiceless plosives | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |||
| Voiced plosives | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| Prenasalised voised plosive | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | ||
| Voiceless fricatives | f | s | h | |||
| Voiced fricatives | β | ʝ | ɣ | |||
| Voiceless affricatives | tʃ | |||||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Liquids | l |
Other phonemes:
- and are in a free variation.
- and are not included in a phoneme chart in Kisi because they only occur as glide insertion between historically or morphologically adjacent vowels. does not occur otherwise. For some speakers, occurs as a free variant of which is considered incorrect by other speakers.
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High - degree 1 | i i: | u u: | |
| High - degree 2 | ɪ ɪ: | ʊ ʊ: | |
| Mid | e e: | o o: | |
| Low | a a: |
Contrastive and obligatory length is marked with /:/. This does not necessarily reflect a difference in the length of production.
| Symbol | Example words | Meaning |
| - | Swahili: bei | 'price' |
| - | Swahili: ngao | 'shield' |
Swahili: bei, and Swahili: ngao - These Swahili words have been borrowed into Kisi and pronounced with a diphthong in Kisi