TerraverbaAn atlas of the world’s languages 简体中文 Open the atlas

Rundi

Ikirundi

Rundi is an Atlantic-Congo language spoken in Burundi, Congo - Kinshasa, Tanzania, and Uganda, by about 10.8 million people.

See it on the globeOpen in the family tree

Rundi · 2.9°S 30.0°E

Kirundi (), officially known as Ikirundi (also known as Rundi), is a Bantu language and the national language of Burundi. It is mutually intelligible with Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda, and the two form parts of the Rwanda-Rundi dialect continuum spoken in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Kenya.

Kirundi is natively spoken by the Hutu (including the Bakiga), Tutsi, Twa, and the Hima people; other related ethnicities have also adopted Kirundi as their mother tongue. Neighbouring dialects of Kirundi are mutually intelligible with Ha, a language spoken in western Tanzania.

Kirundi is one of the languages where Meeussen's rule, a rule describing a certain pattern of tonal change in Bantu languages, is active.

From Wikipedia · Kirundi · CC BY-SA 4.0

Written down

Abantu bose bavuka bishira bakizana kandi bangana mu gateka no mu ngingo zibubahiriza. Bafise ubwenge n'umutima kandi bategerezwa kwubahana nk'abavandimwe.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in Unicode).

Words in Rundi

MeaningWordRomanization
personntu*
namezina*
eyeso*
eartwi*
nosezuru*
toothinyo*
tonguerimi*
bloodraso*
bonegufa*
skinsato*
kneevi*
breastbere*
livertigu*
waterzi*
fireTanwa*
sunzuba*
starnyenyeri*
stonebuye*
mountainsozi*
treeti*
leafbabi*
nightjoro*
dogbwa*
fishfi*
louseda*
onemwe*
twobiri*
drinknyo*
seebon*
hearumv*

* in the simplified ASJP transcription

Most similar languages

Vocabulary

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

Nearby languages

Elsewhere

Something wrong here? Tell us

Glottolog · rund1242 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · run