Lendu language

Lendu
	Balendru
Native to	Congo (DRC)
Ethnicity	Lendu, Hema, Alur, Okebu
Native speakers	(760,000, including Ndrulo cited 1996)
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Central Sudanic Eastern Lenduic Lendu; ; ; ;
Dialects	Badha;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	led
Glottolog	lend1245
Linguasphere	03-BAD

The Lendu language is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Balendru, an ethno-linguistic agriculturalist group residing in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the area west and northwest of Lake Albert, specifically the Ituri Region of Orientale Province. It is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu and Hema people was the basis of the Ituri conflict.

Besides the Balendru themselves, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu.

Names

Ethnologue gives Bbadha as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists Badha as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languages, available from his website and dated 2012, lists Lendu/Badha.

Phonology

Demolin (1995)^[2] posits that Lendu has voiceless implosives, /ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ɠ̊/ (/ƥ ƭ ƙ/). However, Goyvaerts (1988)^[3] had described these as creaky-voiced implosives /ɓ̰ ɗ̰ ɠ̰/, as in Hausa, contrasting with a series of modally voiced implosives /ɓ ɗ ɠ/ as in Kalabari, and Ladefoged judges that this seems to be a more accurate description.^[4]

References

^ Lendu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
^ Demolin, Didier. 1995. The phonetics and phonology of glottalized consonants in Lendu. In Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia (eds.), Phonology and Phonetic Evidence. Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV, 368-385. Cambridge Univ. Press.
^ Goyvaerts, Didier L. 1988. Glottalized Consonants a New Dimension. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 3. 97-102. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
^ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 87–89. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.

[e18-1] Lendu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] Demolin, Didier. 1995. The phonetics and phonology of glottalized consonants in Lendu. In Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia (eds.), Phonology and Phonetic Evidence. Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV, 368-385. Cambridge Univ. Press.

[3] Goyvaerts, Didier L. 1988. Glottalized Consonants a New Dimension. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 3. 97-102. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

[4] Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 87–89. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.

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