Gwere, or Lugwere, is the language spoken by the Gwere people (Bagwere), a Bantu people found in the eastern part of Uganda. It has a close dialectical resemblance to Soga and Ganda, which neighbour the Gwere.

Gwere, though closest in dialect to its eastern neighbours, also has many words similar to those used by tribes from the western part of Uganda. For example, musaiza (a man) resembles mushiiza used by the western languages with the same meaning.

The Ruli, a somewhat distant people living in central Uganda, speak a language that has almost exactly the same words used in Lugwere, but with a very different pronunciation.

Phonology[edit]

Consonants[edit]

Gwere has 20 consonant phonemes.^[3]

Vowels[edit]

Gwere has ten vowel phonemes, 5 short and 5 long.^[4]

Orthography and alphabet[edit]

The Gwere alphabet has 31 letters.^[5][6]

• a - a - [ɑ]
• aa - aa - [ɑː]
• b - ba - [β]
• bb - bba - [b]
• c - ca - [c]
• d - da - [d]
• e - e - [e]
• ee - ee - [eː]
• f - fa - [f]
• g - ga - [g]
• i - i - [i]
• ii - ii - [iː]
• j - ja - [ɟ]
• k - ka - [k]
• l - la - [l]
• m - ma - [m]
• n - na - [n]
• ny - nya - [ɲ]
• ŋ - ŋa - [ŋ]
• o - o - [o]
• oo - oo - [oː]
• p - pa - [p]
• r - ra - [r]
• s - sa - [s]
• t - ta - [t]
• u - u - [u]
• uu - uu - [uː]
• v - va - [v]
• w - wa - [w]
• y - ya - [j]
• z - za - [z]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

• Ager, Simon. "Gwere". Omniglot.
• Akinlabi, Akinbiyi (1995). Theoretical approaches to African linguistics. Africa World Press. ISBN 0-86543-463-8.
• Nzogi, Richard Kijjali (2006-06-15). Lugwere Phonology Statement (PDF). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-01-16.
• Nzogi, Richard; Diprose, Martin (2012a). "The Lugwere Alphabet". Lugwere Dictionary. Entebbe, Uganda: Lunyole Language Association.

Further reading[edit]

• Kagaya, Ryohei (2005). "Gūere-go no meishi to meishishūshoku-go no onchō katachi bunseki" グウェレ語の名詞と名詞修飾語の音調形分析 [A tonal analysis of nouns of the Gwere language]. Journal of Asian and African Studies. 69: 123–176. doi:10.15026/20216.
• Kayaga, Ryohei (2006). A Gwere Vocabulary. Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 9784872979282.
• Ndoboli, Titus (1994). The tense system of Lugwere (MA thesis). Kampala: Makerere University.
• Nzogi, Richard (2009). Disambiguating grammatical tone in Gwere orthography by using clarifying words (PDF). SIL electronic working papers (SILEWP). Vol. 2009–003. SIL International. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-03-22.
• Nzogi, Richard; Diprose, Martin (2012b). "EKideero ky'oLugwere Lugwere Dictionary / Lugwere- English with English Index". Entebbe, Uganda: Lunyole Language Association.
• Schoenbrun, David Lee (1997). The Historical Reconstruction of Great Lakes Bantu Cultural Vocabulary: Etymologies and Distributions. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. ISBN 9783896450951.