Rendille language

Rendille
Native to	Kenya
Region	Eastern Province
Native speakers	60,000 (2009 census)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Cushitic Lowland East Rendille–Boni Rendille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rel
Glottolog	rend1243[2]

Rendille (also known as Rendile, Randile) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch.^[3]

The Ariaal sub-group of the Rendille, who are of mixed Nilotic and Cushitic descent, speak the Nilo-Saharan Samburu language of the Samburu Nilotes near whom they live.^[3][4]

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental–alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless plosive		t	c	k
Voiced plosive	b	d	ɟ	g
Fricative	f	s		x	h ~ ħ ~ ʔ
Lateral		l
Trill		r
Nasal	m	n
Glide	w		j

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Near-close	ɪ	ʊ
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a	ɑ

Notes

1. Rendille at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Rendille". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Ethnologue - Rendille
4. Parris, Ronald G. (1994). Rendille. Rosen Publishing Group. p. 13. ISBN 0823917630.

References

• Antoinette Oomen. 1981. "Gender and Plurality in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:35-75.
• Steve Pillinger & Letiwa Galboran. 1999. A Rendille Dictionary, Including a Grammatical Outline and an English-Rendille Index. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 14. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
• Günther Schlee. 1978. Sprachliche Studien zum Rendille. Hamburger Philologische Studien 46. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
• Ronald J. Sim. 1981. "Morphophonemics of the Verb in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:1-33.