Bari is the Nilotic language of the Karo people, spoken over large areas of Central Equatoria state in South Sudan, across the northwest corner of Uganda, and into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bari is spoken by several distinct tribes: the Bari people themselves, the Pojulu, Kakwa, Nyangwara, Mundari, and Kuku. Each has its own dialect. The language is therefore sometimes called Karo or Kutuk ('mother tongue') rather than Bari.
Bari is a tone language. It has vowel harmony, subject–verb–object word order, and agglutinative verbal morphology with some suppletion. A very competent dictionary and grammar were published in the 1930s, but are very difficult to find today. More recently, a dissertation has been published on Bari tonal phonology, and another dissertation on Bari syntax is available.
Dialects Dialects are: Bari proper (Beri) Pöjulu (Pajulu, Fadjulu, Fajelu, Madi) Kakwa (Kakua, Kwakwak) [radio broadcasts in Uganda] Nyangbara (Nyangwara, Nyambara) Mandari (Mondari, Mundari, Chir, Kir, Shir) Kuku Nyepu (Nyefu, Nyepo, Nypho, Ngyepu) Ligo (Liggo)
Phonology Consonants This table is based on Spagnolo (1933). Spagnolo, Lorenzo M. Bari grammar. 1933. Verona, Missioni Africane.. OCLC: 34898784 LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalPlosiveImplosiveFricative()RhoticApproximant
// may also be heard as an affricate [] in free variation. // can be heard as a flap [] when in between //.
Vowels Bari and their kin, the Kakwa, have a cross-height vowel-harmony system.SIL Bibliography: Yokwe and Hall 1981
+ATR-ATRFrontCentralBackFrontCentralBackCloseMidOpen
Orthography The Bari alphabet is used by the Bari, Kakwa, Pojulu, and Kuku in South Sudan. There are four digraphs, ʼB, ʼD, ʼY and Ny, and the letter eng, Ŋ.
+ Bari alphabet UppercaseABʼBDʼDEGJIYʼYKLMNŊNyOÖPRSTUW Lowercaseabʼbdʼdegjiyʼyklmnŋnyoöprstuw
+ Bari special characters UppercaseŊÖ Lowercaseŋö Alternativesngo Uppercase Unicode (hexadecimal)014A00D6 Lowercase Unicode (hexadecimal)014B00F6 Unicode Character Code ChartLatin Extended ALatin-1
References
General References Bari Language, Sudan Primer: Sillabari Ko Kutuk Na Bari. The Catholic Press Institute. Juba, Sudan. Owen, R.C.R. Bari grammar and vocabulary. 1908. OCLC: 25040516 Spagnolo, Lorenzo M. Bari grammar. 1933. Verona, Missioni Africane. OCLC: 34898784 Vossen, Rainer. The Eastern Nilotes. (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, 9.). 1982. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Yokwe, Eluzai. The tonal grammar of Bari. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1987.
External links
Kitap Kwakwaset The Book of Common Prayer in Bari (1953) https://web.archive.org/web/20090215100524/http://www.openroad.net.au/languages/african/