Dholuo

Luo
Dholuo
Native to	Kenya and Tanzania
Region	Nyanza province of Kenya and Mara Region of Tanzania
Ethnicity	Joluo
Native speakers	4.2 million (2009 census)
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic? Southern Eastern? Nilotic Western Nilotic Luo Southern Luo–Acholi Luo
Writing system	Latin, Luo script
Language codes
ISO 639-2	luo
ISO 639-3	luo
Glottolog	luok1236

The Dholuo dialect (pronounced [d̪ólúô]) or Nilotic Kavirondo, is a dialect of the Luo group of Nilotic languages, spoken by about 4.2 million Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania, who occupy parts of the eastern shore of Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria) and areas to the south. It is used for broadcasts on Ramogi TV and KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, formerly the Voice of Kenya).

Dholuo is mutually intelligible with Alur, Acholi, Adhola and Lango of Uganda. Dholuo and the aforementioned Uganda languages are all linguistically related to Dholuo of South Sudan and Anuak of Ethiopia due to common ethnic origins of the larger Luo peoples who speak Luo languages.

It is estimated that Dholuo has 93% lexical similarity with Dhopadhola (Adhola), 90% with Leb Alur (Alur), 83% with Leb Achol (Acholi) and 81% with Leb Lango. However, these are often counted as separate languages despite common ethnic origins due to linguistic shift occasioned by geographical movement.

Literacy (Of the Luo from South Nyanza)

Contains the area in which the Seventh-day Adventist British East Africa Mission worked. Rusinga Island and the town of Kisii are marked.

The foundations of the Dholuo written language and today's Dholuo literary tradition, as well as the modernization of the Joluo people in Kenya, began in 1907 with the arrival of a Canadian-born Seventh-day Adventist missionary Arthur Asa Grandville Carscallen, whose missionary work over a period of about 14 years along the eastern shores of Lake Victoria left a legacy. (This applies only to the Luo of Southern Nyanza, which are to the East of Lake Victoria). This legacy continues today through the Obama family of Kenya and the Seventh-day Adventist Church to which the Obamas and many other Joluo converted in the early part of the 20th century as residents of the region that Carscallen was sent to proselytize. The Obamas of Kenya are relatives of former US president Barack Obama.

From 1906 to 1921, Carscallen was superintendent of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's British East Africa Mission, and was charged with establishing missionary stations in eastern Kenya near Lake Victoria and proselytizing among the local population. These stations would include Gendia, Wire Hill, Rusinga Island, Kanyadoto, Karungu, Kisii (Nyanchwa), and Kamagambo. In 1913, he acquired a small press for the Mission and set up a small printing operation at Gendia in order to publish church materials, but also used it to impact education and literacy in the region.

Over a period of about five years administering to largely Jaluo congregations, Carscallen achieved a mastery of the Dholuo language and was credited with being the first to reduce the language to writing, publishing the Elementary grammar of the Nilotic-Kavirondo language (Dhö Lwo), together with some useful phrases, English-Kavirondo and Kavirondo-English vocabulary, and some exercises with key to the same in 1910. Then, a little more than two years later, the mission translated portions of the New Testament from English to Dholuo, which were later published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

In 2019, Jehovah’s Witnesses released the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in the Luo language. The Bible translation is distributed without charge, both in print and online.

The grammar textbook Carscallen produced was widely used for many years throughout eastern Kenya, but his authorship of it is largely forgotten. It was later retitled to Dho-Luo for Beginners and republished in 1936. In addition to the grammar text, Carscallen compiled an extensive dictionary of "Kavirondo" (Dholuo) and English, which is housed at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. Neither of these works has been superseded, only updated, with new revised versions of the linguistic foundation that Carscallen established in 1910.

Phonology

Vowels

Dholuo has two sets of five vowels, distinguished by the feature [±ATR] which is carried primarily on the first formant. While ATR is phonemic in the language, various phonological vowel harmony processes play a major role and can change the ATR of the vowel at output. A current change in certain dialects of Dholuo is that certain pronouns seem to be losing the ATR contrast and instead use [±ATR] in free variance.

[−ATR] vowels in Dholuo

	Front	Central	Back
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		ɐ

[+ATR] vowels in Dholuo

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Consonants

In the table of consonants below, orthographic symbols are included between angle brackets following the IPA symbols. Note especially the following: the use of ⟨y⟩ for /j/, common in African orthographies; ⟨th⟩, ⟨dh⟩ are plosives, not fricatives as in Swahili spelling (but phoneme /d̪/ can fricativize intervocalically).

Phonetic inventory of consonants in Dholuo

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩		n ⟨n⟩	ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ngʼ⟩
Plosive	prenasalized	ᵐb ⟨mb⟩		ⁿd ⟨nd⟩	ᶮɟ ⟨nj⟩	ᵑɡ ⟨ng⟩
	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t̪ ⟨th⟩	t ⟨t⟩	c ⟨ch⟩	k ⟨k⟩
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩	d̪ ⟨dh⟩	d ⟨d⟩	ɟ ⟨j⟩	ɡ ⟨g⟩
Fricative		f ⟨f⟩		s ⟨s⟩			h ⟨h⟩
Trill				r ⟨r⟩
Approximant		w ⟨w⟩		l ⟨l⟩	j ⟨y⟩

Phonological characteristics

Dholuo is a tonal language. There is both lexical tone and grammatical tone, e.g. in the formation of passive verbs. It has vowel harmony by ATR status: the vowels in a noncompound word must be either all [+ATR] or all [−ATR]. The ATR-harmony requirement extends to the semivowels /w/, /ɥ/.

Grammar

Dholuo is notable for its complex phonological alternations, which are used, among other things, in distinguishing inalienable possession from alienable. The first example is a case of alienable possession, as the bone is not part of the dog.

chogo

bone

guok

dog

(chok guok)

 

chogo guok

bone dog

'the dog's bone' (which it is eating)

The following is however an example of inalienable possession, the bone being part of the cow:

chok

bone (construct state)

dhiang'

cow

chok dhiang'

{bone (construct state)} cow

'a cow bone'

Sample phrases

English	Luo
hello	misawa (ber)
How are you?	Idhi nade? Intie nade?
I'm fine.	Adhi maber.
What is your name?	Nyingi ng'a?
My name is…	Nyinga en…
I am happy to see you.	Amor neni.
Where do you come from?	In jakanye?
good morning	oyawore
good evening	oimore
God bless you.	Nyasaye ogwedhi.
good job	tich maber
Salvation	resruok
goodbye	oriti
I want water.	Adwaro pi.
I am thirsty.	Riyo deya. / Riyo omaka. / Riyo ohinga.
thank you	erokamano
child	nyathi
student (university student)	nyathi skul, japuonjre (ja mbalariany)
come	bi
go	dhiyo
take	kaw
return	dwok
come back	dwogi
sit	bedi
stand / stop	chung' / wee
hunger	kech
I am starved.	Kech kaya.
father	wuoro [Dinka] wur
mother	miyo [Dinka] mor mer
God	Nyasaye, Nyakalaga, Were, Obong'o ( Different names associated with different attributes of God)
Lord (God)	Ruoth (Nyasaye)
God is good	Nyasaye ber
help	kony [Dinka] ba kony
man	dichuo
woman	dhako
boy	wuoyi (wuowi)
girl	nyako [Dinka] nya
book	buk, [Alego/Seme] buge
youth	rawera
pen	randiki
shorts	onyasa
trousers	long'
table	mesa
plate	tao
lock	rarind, ralor
leader	jatelo
bring	kel
Go back there.	Dog kucha.
Come back here.	Duog ka.
ask / query	penj
question	penjo
run	ringi [Dinka]
walk	wuothi
jump	dum / chikri [Alego/Seme]
rain	koth
sun	chieng'
moon	dwe / duee
stars	sulwe
work	ti
fish	rech [Dinka]
cold	koyo
I want to eat.	Adwaro chiemo.
I have something to say	An gi wach
grandfather	kwaro [Dinka] / kwar
grandmother	dayo [Dinka] / day
white man	ja rachar / ombogo / ja wagunda
cow / cattle	dwasi / dhiang'
sing	wer [Dinka]
song	wer
good, beautiful	ber, jaber
bad	rach
marriage	kend [Dinka], "keny" is the process, "thiek" is the marriage
marry	kendo
tomorrow	kiny
today	kawuono
here	ka / kae
there (close by)	kacha / kocha
there (far)	kucho
child	nyathi
money	omenda / chung' / oboke / sendi / pesa
gun	bunde
gun fire	maj bunde
start	chaki
dream	leki
stand	chung'
abroad	loka
talk	wuo/los
sit	bedi
praise	pak
eat	chiem
fire	mach
I want ugali.	Adwaro kuon.
maize, corn	oduma, bando
maize and beans	nyoyo
taxi	matatu (Swahili)
farm	puodho (Alego-Ndalo)
plough / dig out	pur / kuny
flying (in the air)	fuyo
fly (insect)	lwang'ni
stream (river)	aora
lake	nam
ocean	ataro
please	asayi

Bibliography

• Gregersen, E. (1961). Luo: A grammar. Dissertation: Yale University.
• Stafford, R. L. (1965). An elementary Luo grammar with vocabularies. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
• Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1982). The major syntactic structures of Dholuo. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
• Tucker, A. N. (ed. by Chet A. Creider) (1994). A grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo). 2 vols. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
• Okoth Okombo, D. (1997). A Functional Grammar of Dholuo. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
• Odaga, Asenath Bole (1997). English-Dholuo dictionary. Lake Publishers & Enterprises, Kisumu. ISBN 9966-48-781-6.
• Odhiambo, Reenish Acieng' and Aagard-Hansen, Jens (1998). Dholuo course book. Nairobi.
• Capen, Carole Jamieson. 1998. Bilingual Dholuo-English dictionary, Kenya. Tucson (Arizona): self-published. Kurasa ix, 322. [ISBN 0-966688-10-4]

External links

• Luo phrases and basics
• A Handbook of the Kavirondo Language (1920) – one of the earliest books on Dholuo
• Lakeside Font - True Type Font for writing in Dholuo (archived)