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.

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.

Phonology

Consonants

• /tɕ/ can be heard as [ɕ] by some speakers.

• Some speakers always pronounce /x/ as a uvular stop [q].

• [ʕ] can be heard as a free variant of /ħ/, or when /ħ/ is heard in intervocalic position.

• Voiced sounds become voiceless when in word-final position.

• /b/ can be pronounced as [p] when preceding /ħ/, or as a fricative [β] in intervocalic position.

• /r/ can also freely be devoiced as [r̥] in word-initial position, and is always heard as devoiced in word-final position.

• /d̪/ can freely be heard as an affricate [d̪ð], and can also be heard as a fricative [ð] in intervocalic position.

• /x/ can also be heard as an affricate [qχ] when following nasal sounds.

Vowels

• Vowels /i, u, e, o/ are commonly heard as lax [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].

Alphabet

The Rendille alphabet has 26 letters:Long vowels are written doubled. Tone is phonemic, and high tone can be written as an acute accent ( ́), while low tone is not marked.

References

Further reading

• Harold C. Fleming, "Baiso and Rendille: Somali Outliers", Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, 20 (1964), pp. 35–96.

• 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.

• Heine, Bernd. 1976. Notes on the Rendille Language. In Afrika und Übersee LIX. 176-223

• 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.