Sukuma is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken in an area southeast of Lake Victoria between Mwanza, Shinyanga, and Lake Eyasi.[Margaret Arminel Bryan, compiler, The Bantu Languages of Africa, Oxford University Press, 1959.]
Dialects
Dialects (
KɪmunaSukuma in the west,
GɪmunaNtuzu/GɪnaNtuzu in the northeast, and
Jìnàkɪ̀ɪ̀yâ/JimunaKɪɪyâ in the southeast) are easily mutually intelligible.
[The prefixes kɪ-, gɪ-, ji- are dialectical variants.]
Language identity
It is reported that although Sukuma is very similar to Nyamwezi, speakers themselves do not accept that they make up a single language.
[ The Bantu Languages of Africa, as above.]
Phonology
There are seven vowel qualities, which occur long and short:
[Rahma Muhdhar, 2006, Verb Extensions in Kisukuma, Jinakiiya dialect, MS dissertation, UDSM]
, which are written , may be closer to , and may be closer to .
Sukuma has gone through Dahl's Law ( ɪdàtʊ́ 'three', from Proto-Bantu -tatʊ) and has voiceless nasal consonants.
It is not clear whether should better be considered as stops or affricates as or whether they are even palatal.
Syllables are V or CV. There are four tones on short vowels: high, low, rising, and falling.
Orthography
Its orthography uses
Roman script without special letters, which resembles that used for
Swahili language, and has been used for Bible translations
[ The Gospel in Many Tongues, The British and Foreign Bible Society, London, 1965.] and in religious literature.
[ Kitabo sha Sala na sha Mimbo, Diochesi ya Mwanza, edited / approved by Bishop Renatus Butibubage, 1963.]
Grammar
The following description is based on the JinaKɪɪya dialect. One of the characteristics of that dialect is that the noun-class prefixes subject to Dahl's Law have been levelled to voiced consonants and so they no longer alternate.
Noun concord
Sukuma noun-class prefixes are augmented by pre-prefixes
a-, ɪ-, ʊ-, which are dropped in certain constructions. The noun classes and the agreement that they trigger
[Adjectival concord, possessive suffixes on nouns, subject and object suffixes on verbs, and the agreeing form of -mô 'one', -βɪ̀lɪ́ 'two', and 'this'] are as follows,
[ with attested forms in other dialects being added in parentheses:
]
(For compatibility, is transcribed .)
|
|
| human |
| àβà |
| trees, etc. |
| ɪ̀yɪ̀ |
body parts, food, common objs,
(pl.) liquids |
| àyà |
| things, language, body parts, etc. |
| ɪ̀ɟı̀ |
| common objects, animals, fruits, etc. |
| ɪ̀ɟì |
| common objects, body parts, etc. |
diminutives[Including insignificance, derogation, (sg.) manner of doing] |
| ʊ̀tʊ̀ |
| abstractions, insects, etc. |
| body parts and infinitives |
| location |
| ʊ̀kʊ̀ |
| ʊ̀mù |
Many kin terms have a reduced form of the nominal prefixes, zero and βa-, called class 1a/2a, as in 'mother', 'mothers'. Concord is identical with other class-1/2 nouns.
Singular/plural pairs are 1/2, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, and 12/13, and locative classes 16, 17, and 18 do not have plurals. Most others use class 6 for their plurals: 11/6, 14/6, 15/6, and also sometimes 7/6 and 12/6. There are also nouns that inflect as 11/4, 11/14, 14/10, and 15/8.
Verbal complex
Infinitive verbs have the form gʊ-object-ext-ROOT-ext-V-locative, where ext stands for any of various grammatical 'extensions', and -V is the final vowel. For example, with roots in bold and tone omitted,[
]
- gũ-n- tĩn-ĩl-a
- 'To cut for him/her'
- gwĩ- tĩn-ĩl-a
- 'To cut for each other'
-ĩl is the applicative suffix, translated as 'for'. The reciprocal prefix ĩ has fused into the infinitive gũ.
- gũ- fum-a-mo
- 'To get out there'
-mo is a locative 'inside', as in class 18 nominal concord.
Finite verbs have the form subject-TAM-ext-object-ROOT-ext-TAM-V. For example,
- βa-lĩ-n- iiš-a
- 'They are feeding him/her'
The root iiš includes a fused causative suffix. Tense is marked by a prefix. The subject marker βa- shows that the subject is human plural, per the noun-concord table above.
- o-dũ- saang-ile
- 'He found us'
Here tense is marked by a suffix.
- βa-gĩ- gunaan-a
- 'They helped each other/themselves'
Here the prefix is fused tense and reciprocal ĩ.
