Kinyarwanda
Kinyarwanda is an Atlantic-Congo language spoken in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo - Kinshasa, and Tanzania, by about 12.1 million people.
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Kinyarwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and the national language of Rwanda. It is a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is also spoken in Uganda, where the dialect is known as Ikinyakore, Rufumbira, or Urufumbira. Kinyarwanda is universal among the native population of Rwanda and is mutually intelligible with Kirundi, the national language of neighbouring Burundi.
In 2010, the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC) was established to help promote and sustain Kinyarwanda. The organization attempted an orthographic reform in 2014, but it was met with pushback due to their perceived top-down and political nature, among other reasons.
From Wikipedia · Kinyarwanda · CC BY-SA 4.0
Written down
Abantu bose bavuka aliko bakwiye agaciro no kwubahwa kimwe. Bose bavukana ubwenge n'umutima, bagomba kugilirana kivandimwe.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in Unicode).
Words in Kinyarwanda
| Meaning | Word | Romanization |
|---|---|---|
| mother | mama | |
| father | so | |
| woman | umugore | |
| friend | inshuti | |
| eye | ijisho | |
| ear | ugutwi | |
| nose | izuru | |
| hand | ikiganza | |
| heart | umutima | |
| head | umutwe | |
| blood | amaraso | |
| bone | igufwa | |
| water | amazi | |
| sun | izuba | |
| rain | imvura | |
| wind | umuyaga | |
| mountain | umusozi | |
| river | uruzi | |
| sea | ikiyaga | |
| tree | igiti | |
| dog | bwa | |
| bird | inyoni | |
| horse | ifarashi | |
| cow | inka | |
| one | rimwe | |
| five | gatanu | |
| see | kubona | |
| die | -pfa | |
| coffee | ikawa | |
| sugar | isukari |
Most similar languages
Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.
Nearby languages
Elsewhere
Glottolog · kiny1244 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · kin