Nyole language (Uganda)


Nyole is a Bantu language spoken by the Luhya people in Tororo District, Uganda near Lake Kyoga. There is 61% lexical similarity with a related but different Nyole language in Kenya.

Phonology

Consonants

Nyole has series of voiceless, voiced, and prenasalized stops. is labio-velar.

Vowels

Historical changes

Nyole has an interesting development from Proto-Bantu *p → Nyole. Schadeberg connects this sound change to rhinoglottophilia, where the sound change developed first as → →. Then, given the acoustic similarity of and breathy voice to nasalization, the sound change progressed as → →. The velar place of articulation development is due to velar nasals being the least perceptible of the nasals and its marginal status in Nyole and other Bantu languages. In closely related neighboring languages, *p developed variously into or or was deleted.
This historical development results in so-called "crazy" alternations, like resulting in as in the following:
In the above two words, when the first person singular subject prefix is added to the stem starting with, the initial consonant surfaces as. In other forms, the original stem-initial can be seen.