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Acholi language
 
 
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Acholi (also Acoli, Akoli, Acooli, Atscholi, Shuli, Gang, Lwoo, Lwo, Log Acoli, Dok Acoli) is a language primarily spoken by the Acholi people in the districts of Gulu
Gulu District

Gulu is a Districts of Uganda in northern Uganda, taking its name from its commercial centre, the town of Gulu. It is one of three districts forming the historical homeland of the Acholi people ethnic group, also known as Acholiland....
, Kitgum and Pader
Pader District

Pader is a Districts of Uganda in northern Uganda with a population of 325,885 . It is a new district, having been carved out of the counties of Aruu and Agago formerly in Kitgum District in December 2001....
, a region known as Acholiland
Acholiland

Acholiland or "Acholi-land" is an inexact term that refers to the region traditionally inhabited by the Acholi people ethnic group in northern Uganda....
 in northern Uganda
Uganda

The Republic of Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania....
. Acholi is also spoken in the southern part of the Opari District of Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
. As of 1996 there were reported approximately 773,800 Acholi speakers in the world. However this has gradually grown to over 800,000.






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Acholi (also Acoli, Akoli, Acooli, Atscholi, Shuli, Gang, Lwoo, Lwo, Log Acoli, Dok Acoli) is a language primarily spoken by the Acholi people in the districts of Gulu
Gulu District

Gulu is a Districts of Uganda in northern Uganda, taking its name from its commercial centre, the town of Gulu. It is one of three districts forming the historical homeland of the Acholi people ethnic group, also known as Acholiland....
, Kitgum and Pader
Pader District

Pader is a Districts of Uganda in northern Uganda with a population of 325,885 . It is a new district, having been carved out of the counties of Aruu and Agago formerly in Kitgum District in December 2001....
, a region known as Acholiland
Acholiland

Acholiland or "Acholi-land" is an inexact term that refers to the region traditionally inhabited by the Acholi people ethnic group in northern Uganda....
 in northern Uganda
Uganda

The Republic of Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania....
. Acholi is also spoken in the southern part of the Opari District of Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
. As of 1996 there were reported approximately 773,800 Acholi speakers in the world. However this has gradually grown to over 800,000. Song of Lawino
Song of Lawino

Song of Lawino is an epic poem written by Uganda poet Okot p'Bitek. First published in 1966 in Luo languages it was quickly translation into other languages, including English language....
 and its sequel, Song of Ocol, well known among African literature, were written in Acholi by Okot p'Bitek
Okot p'Bitek

Okot p'Bitek was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for Song of Lawino, a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up urban life and wishes everything to be Westernization....
.

Acholi is one of the Luo languages
Luo languages

The Nilo-Saharan languages Luo languages comprise about 15 languages spoken in an area ranging from southern Sudan via Uganda to southern Kenya, with Dholuo language extending into northern Tanzania and Alur language into the Democratic Republic of the Congo....
, of the Western Nilotic
Western Nilotic languages

The Western Nilotic languages are one of the three primary branches of the Nilotic languages, themselves belonging to the Eastern Sudanic languages subfamily of Nilo-Saharan languages....
 branch of Nilo-Saharan
Nilo-Saharan languages

The Nilo-Saharan languages are a hypothetical group of African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari River and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet....
. Acholi, Alur
Alur language

Alur is spoken in northwestern Uganda and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo by the Alur people.External links **....
 and Lango
Lango language (Uganda)

Lango is a Western Nilotic languages language of the Luo languages branch, spoken by the Lango people in Uganda. It is mostly spoken in Lango sub-region, in central Uganda....
 have between 84 and 90 per cent of their vocabulary in common and thus are mutually intelligible.

Sounds

Acholi has vowel harmony
Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance Assimilation Phonology process involving vowels in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be found near each other....
: all vowels in a word have to belong to a single class (e.g. the cold vs. to separate). There are two sets of five vowels, distinguished by the feature [+/-ATR].


Acholi is a tonal language
Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning?that is, to distinguish or inflection words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation , but not all languages use tones to distingu...
. Thus, some words may be distinguished by tone alone, e.g. bèl (low) 'wrinkled' vs. bél (high) 'corn' and kàl (low) 'place enclosed by a palisade' vs. kál (high) 'millet'. Tone furthermore plays a role in verb conjugation.

External links

  • on Acholi
  • — Radio programming from northern Uganda in Luo