Burunge is spoken by about 20,000 people in the Dodoma region of central Tanzania. It is counted among the southern Cushitic languages and forms the sub-branch called West-Rift together with Alagwa, Iraqw and Gorwaa. The Burunge language shows no dialectal variation, which is on the one hand due to the low number of speakers, and on the other hand caused by the high degree of mobility in the Dodoma region. Today the language is used only for oral communication, whereas in all other fields, i.e. writing, education and administration, Swahili is chosen.
Following an introduction to the geographical, economical and socio-linguistical situation of the Burunge the author details the phonologic structure of the language, i.e. the phonemic inventory, its relationship to orthography, and phonotactic phenomena. The main part contains an analysis of the morphology, starting with general aspects of morpho-phonology, and proceeding with detailed descriptions of the different word classes (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.), their patterns of word formation and inflection. The last chapters deal with syntax and pragmatics. An example of a transcribed Burunge text with interlinear translation is given as an appendix.
Following the links below, you will find further analyses of related South Cushitic languages, as well as further publications by the author:
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