Native to Kenya Glottolog gusi1247 | ISO 639-3 guz | |
Region Western Kenya, Gusii district Native speakers 2.2 million (2009 census) Language family Niger–Congo
Atlantic–Congo
Benue–Congo
Bantoid
Bantu
Northeast Bantu
Great Lakes Bantu
Logooli–Kuria (E.40)
Gusii | ||
The Gusii language (also known as Kisii or Ekegusii) is a Bantu language spoken in the Kisii district in western Kenya, whose headquarters is Kisii town, (between the Kavirondo Gulf of Lake Victoria and the border with Tanzania). It is spoken by the Gusii people, numbering about 2.0 million (SIL/Ethnologue 1994). A few Gusii people are bilingual in Luo.
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Vowels
Gusii has seven vowels. Vowel length is contrastive, i.e. the words 'bór' to miss and 'bóór' to say are distinguished by vowel length only.
Consonants
In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of ‘y’ for IPA /j/, common in African orthographies. When symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
The following morphophonological alternations occur: