Kumam dialect

Kumam
Ikokolemu
Native to	Uganda
Region	Teso District
Ethnicity	Kumam people
Native speakers	270,000 (2014 census)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic Ateker languages Lango–Kumam [2] Kumam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kdi
Glottolog	kuma1275

Kumam also known as Ikokolemu is a language spoken by the Kumam people, and it belongs to the Ateker group of languages^[3].

As similar with the Lango language situation, currently Kumam speak a Mixed language owing to close proximity with Lwo-speaking peoples. The Kumam language itself is not a Southern Lwoo language.^[4]

Luo languages belong to Luo peoples, these are distinct from the Hamitic also kwown as Ateker group of languages e.g. Kumam, Lango, Ateso and so on. Sources show that the Kumam learned Lwo after migration to their present location in Uganda.^[5]

On 27th to 29th November 2024, Kumam people reunited back to the Ateker peoples. Uganda government hosted this historical event. The Kumam people are not ethnically nor linguistically related to Luo peoples^[6].

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stop	voiceless	p	t	c	k
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	g
Fricative		(f)[1]	(s)[1]
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Semivowel		w		j

1. Fricatives occur only in borrowed words.

Gemination can occur due to morphological processes, for example del 'skin' + -ná → dellá 'my skin'.^[7]

Vowels

Kumam has ten vowels, with a vowel harmony system based on presence or absence of advanced tongue root (ATR).^[7]

	[-ATR]		[+ATR]
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	ɪ	ʊ	i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ	e	o
Open		a		ɑ

Vowels have no distinction in length, except due to some morphological processes, for instance compensatory lengthening that occurs when applying the transitive infinitive suffix -nɔ: ted- 'cook' + -ne → *ted-do → teedo 'to cook'.^[7]

Tone

There exist six tones: low, high, falling, rising, downstep high and double downstep high.^[7]

Tone	Transcription
low	[à]
high	[á]
falling	[â]
rising	[ǎ]
downstep high	[!á]
double downstep high	[!!á]

Tone sandhi

Kumam exhibits tone sandhi in two ways. The first is the spreading of high tonemes rightwards to the following words beginning with a low tonemes, as in ɑbúké 'eyelash' + waŋ 'eye' → abúké wâŋ 'eyelash'. The second is when a floating high toneme is followed by a word beginning in a low toneme, where the floating tone is assigned to the following word and not the word bearing the floating tone: cogó 'bone' + rac 'bad' → cogo râc 'The bone is bad.'^[7]

Grammar

Verbs

Valency

Transitive stems are constructed by applying the suffix -ɔ (yɛŋ 'be satisfied' → yɛŋ-ɔ 'satisfy'). A subset of transitive verbs can have the suffix -ɛ́rɛ́ applied to form what Hieda calls a 'middle form' (nɛ́n-ɔ → nɛ́!nɛ́rɛ́ 'be seen').^[7]

Basic lexicon

Hello – yoga
How are you? –Itiye benyo (singular), Itiyenu benyo (plural)
Fine, and you? – Atiye ber, arai bon yin?
Fine – Atiye ber or just ber
What is your name? – Nying in en Ngai?
My name is ... – Nying ango en ...
Name --- Nying
Nice to see you. --- Apwoyo Neno in (also: Apwoyo Neno wun)
See you again --- Oneno bobo
Book – Itabo
Because – Pi Ento

The first sentence in the bible can be translated as I ya gege, Rubanga ocweo wi polo kede piny ("In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth" ).

References

1. Kumam at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (10 July 2023). "Glottolog 4.8 - Southern Lwoo". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 21 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
3. "Kumam language".
4. Kagolo, B M Makerere University (1955). "Tribal names and customs in Teso district". The Uganda Journal.
5. "BANTU CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC SHIFT".
6. "Museveni to grace first Ateker reunion fete".
7. Hieda, Osamu (2020). "Kumam". In Vossen, Rainer; Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. pp. 611–629. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.013.24. ISBN 978-0-19-960989-5.