Introduction 3

The language 3
The speaker 3
Methods 4
Notes on orthography 4
Speech sound inventory 5
1. Syllables 6
1.1. Syllable types 6
1.2. Prenasalization 7
1.3. Palatalization 8
1.4. Apocope 10
1.5. Epenthesis 10
1.6. Labialization 11
1.7. Gemination 14
1.8. Main syllable type(s) 14
2. Consonants 15
2.1. Consonant inventory 15
2.2. Plosives 16
2.2.1. /b/: Bilabial plosive 16
2.2.2. /t/: Alveolar plosive 18
2.2.3. /c/: Voiceless palatal plosive 19
2.2.4. /j/: Voiced palatal plosive 19
2.2.5. /k/: Voiceless velar plosive 19
2.2.6. /g/: Voiced velar plosive 20
2.3. Fricatives 20
2.3.1. /f/: Voiceless labio-dental fricative 21
2.3.2. /v/: Voiced labio-dental fricative 21
2.3.3. /s/: Voiceless alveolar fricative 21
2.3.4. /z/: Voiced alveolar fricative 21
2.4. Nasals 22
2.4.1. /m/: Bilabial nasal 22
2.4.2. /n/: Alveolar nasal 22
2.4.3. /ɲ/: Palatal nasal 22
2.4.4. /ŋ/: Velar nasal 23
2.5. Prenasalized consonants 24
2.6. Noun classes 9-10 and prenasalization 25
2.7. Approximants 27
2.7.1. /l/: Alveolar lateral approximant 27
2.7.2. /w/: Labio-velar approximant 29
2.7.3. /y/: Palatal approximant 30
3. Vowels 31
3.1. Vowel inventory 31
3.2. Vowel lengthening 31
 3.3. Lexical long vowels 32
3.4. Vowel shortening 33
3.5. Contraction 33
4. Tones 34
4.1. Low and falling tones 34
4.2. High tone or stress? 34
A1. Word list 36
A2. Noun classes 38
References 39
Introduction
The following paper is a phonology sketch of Luganda, a (Great Lakes) Bantu language
spoken in Uganda, which was written for the third-year course Linguistic Fieldwork A hosted
by professor Jenneke van der Wal at Leiden University as part of the BA Linguistics. Over
the course of seven elicitation sessions, couples of students working together with a native
speaker were able to gather raw data in the form of audio recordings and elicited word lists.
We were tasked to each make our own phonology sketch based on this material.

The language
Luganda, also known as Ganda (to which we add the noun class 11 prefix (o)lu- for abstract
nouns), is a Bantu language spoken by an increasing number of speakers in and outside of
Uganda, a 2014 consensus of which counted 5,560,000 L1 speakers and 5,390,000 L2
speakers (Ethnologue, 2019). As we will see through many analyses, this language is
typically Bantu, with relatively exotic articulation types and the usage of noun classes among
other features. It is written in Latin script, and is Uganda’s most widely spoken language,
aside from English which (along with Swahili) is the republic’s official language.

The speaker
Our speaker is an adult male native speaker who was born and raised in the capital city of
Uganda, Kampala. After having visited quite a few places in Europe and South America, our
speaker had settled in the Netherlands about five years ago. He still speaks Luganda with
friends over the phone. Other than Luganda, he noted that English is his second native
language. This is reflective of a very interesting diglossic situation present in (at least this
part of) the country. Not only is English the official and most widely spoken language of
Uganda, it is also a highly prestigious language up to the point that people do not only use it
in formal domains like at the workplace, inside school buildings, in the media and in plenty of
writing, but even youngsters among themselves like to converse in English when out in
public. It was only at home that the speaker was required to speak Luganda by his parents,
which was the native language of his father. His mother's native language was Lugisu, also
known as Masaba. This language variety is also a Northeast ('Great Lakes') Bantu language
and thus relatively closely related to Luganda, but as it is commonly known throughout the
Buganda region, people (our speaker included) sometimes refer to it as a dialect. The
speaker also speaks French, Spanish, and is picking up on Dutch, and has been a teacher
of both French and English throughout his career. It is the first time our speaker has been
asked to support a fieldwork project in service of a bachelor program at a university. Despite
not having any curricular linguistic training, his knowledge of his own mother tongue as well
as his capability of comparing grammatical structures from different languages is superb and
highly beneficial for our research.
Methods
During each of the seven elicitation sessions a pair of students was selected to audio-record
our speaker (using a recorder provided by professor van der Wal) offering us words based
on vocabulary lists they prepared. They and the rest of the class simultaneously gathered
data by writing, and the hosts uploaded the audio files to a Dropbox map and their data to a
project page on Dative (app.dative.ca), both exclusively shared by our class. All of our
findings were discussed during a separate weekly lecture and on a discussion board on
Brightspace. Our efforts resulted in every student writing a phonology sketch of the
language, which will (hopefully) be expanded to a phonology and morphology sketch at the
end of the current semester, and a full-fledged grammar sketch (including syntax) by the end
of the academic year (2023-2024).

Notes on orthography
While reading through this phonology sketch, the reader will stumble upon two types of
orthography: a personal orthography and a (relatively) pure IPA transcription accompanying
it. The reasoning behind such a usage is that my personal orthography is meant to be
phonemic in nature, displaying underlying forms of morphemes and indicating morpheme
boundaries, whereas the IPA transcriptions are phonetic outputs. This means that the first
type of orthography is specifically designed in service of morphological analyses, whereas
the latter in combination with the former offers insight into phonological processes, as the
input of a form and its output are displayed side-by-side. To offer some notes:
● /b/ is always displayed as b in the personal orthography, whereas it can be shown to
spirantize into [β] in IPA (ebí-bala [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βí.βà.là]);
● Consonant gemination is displayed as double consonant writing, whereas double
dots are used in IPA (omú-bbi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mú.b:ì]);
● Long vowels are only written in the personal orthography (using double vowel writing)
if they are lexically determined (ama-suuka); vowel lengthening processes are not
taken into account. For the sake of displaying tonal heights accurately, IPA
renderings also (always) make use of double vowel writing instead of double dots, as
differing tones might appear on otherwise completely identical vowels in sequence;
● Only high tone is displayed in the personal orthography, with low tone being treated
as basic / standard and falling tone being highly predictable (ecikuuntá
[ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.kûû.ⁿtá]).
● Prenasalized consonants are simply displayed as a sequence of a regular nasal
symbol and a consonant symbol in the personal orthography (nzíka), as are
labialized consonants written as the respective consonant plus -w (gwé).
● Divergent orthographical syllables are displayed between pointed brackets (< … >) in
the following speech sound charts:
Appendix 1 Speech sound inventory

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar

Plosive (p) /t/ /c/ /k/

/b/ ~ [β] (d) /ɟ/ < j > /g/

Nasal /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ < ñ > /ŋ/

Fricative /f/ /s/

/v/ /z/

Approximant /w/ /j/ < y >

Lateral /l/ ~ [d:] < dd >,

approximant [ɾ] < r >

Front Back

High /i/ /u/

High-mid /ɛ/ < e > /ɔ/ < o >

Low /a/
1. Syllables
Although it has become tradition to write a phonology sketch in such a way that consonants
and vowels are discussed before moving on to syllable structure, we will start off our
analysis rather counter-intuitively by looking at syllable structure first. The reasoning behind
this is that understanding syllabification processes in Luganda has proven to be extremely
beneficial to the identification of speech sounds and phonological processes. Reading
through a chapter of syllable structure thus makes further analysis easier, as basic principles
discussed in this chapter can be referred to when showcasing some much grander analyses
or one which heavily relies on the theoretical frameworks we propose here.

1.1. Syllable types

Displaying a hand-picked set of nouns ranging from smaller to larger strings of syllables, we
see that Luganda makes use of monosyllabic to pentasyllabic structures, with CV functioning
as the common syllable type, strings typically consisting of CV.CV, no consonants in coda
position, and single vowel-nucleus syllables are also possible:

Monosyllabic forms
ñá [ɲá] 'four; 4'
zó [zɔ́] ‘your’

Disyllabic forms
sátu [sá.tù] ‘two; 2’
balí [bà.lí] ‘those (demonstrative’)

Trisyllabic forms
eliñó [ɛ̀ɛ̀.lì.ɲɔ́] ‘tooth’
okutú [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.tú] ‘ear’

Quadrisyllabic forms
olugálo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.gá.lɔ̀] ‘finger’
omucíla [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.cí.ɾà] ‘tail / penis’ (see 2.7. Approximants for /l/ > [ɾ]
assimilation))

Pentasyllabic forms
okukáñuga [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ká.ɲù.gà] ‘to throw’
okumumuñá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.mù.mù.ɲá] ‘to hum’

1.2. Word-initial vowel lengthening

We see that vowels in word-initial position are always long. We cannot say that this is
lexically determined, since these vowels are part of noun class prefixes which necessarily
latch onto nominal roots in any Bantu language (see A2. Noun classes). We would be much
better off by saying this is a phonological process, in which V / #_ > VV. Long vowels are,
however, not only present word-initially, but also occur word-medially either by being-lexically
determined or as the result or assimilation (see 3.2. Vowel lengthening). Vowel length will not
hinder the following analysis, and we will come back to the feature with the final draft of our
main syllable type.

1.3. Prenasalization
The first roadblock we run into are forms like we following:

ɛ̀ɛ̀mbútɔ̀ ‘bellies’
musââmvù ‘seven; 7’
ɛ̀ɛ̀nsɔ̀lɔ̀ ‘animal’
ɛ̀ɛ̀ñcímà ‘monkey’
ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋkûûmbì ‘hoe’

The Indo-European ear might want to perceive such nasal elements as closing a syllable
functioning as its coda, and preceding a following consonant which is the onset of the
following syllable. We are not dealing with an Indo-European language though. Bantu
languages are known for their exocity, and it would be very close-minded to end our
phonological analysis of nasals here. In fact, it would be detrimental to our theory that
consonants in Luganda can only appear in onset position, and simply making an exception
for nasals would be easy, but lazy, atypically Bantu, and non-satisfying.
In a language like Setswana (which I studied last year) it turned out that nasals were
syllabic in the language. They did not appear in a syllable's coda position underlyingly, as
they were separated and carried a distinct low or high tone when our speaker syllabified
words verbally or by means of whistling. Only sometimes during swift speech it would sound
like we were dealing with *CVN, but only as a result of contraction. A Luganda word like
eembúto 'bellies' would thus be syllabified as ɛ̀ɛ̀ / m̀ / bú / tò according to Setswana
phonology (assuming the syllabic m carries low tone). An analysis like this, if true, would
scrap the idea of nasals appearing in coda position, but it automatically generates the
problem of nasals being able to function as a nucleus, meaning that words can end with a
nasal functioning as the final syllable and that a nasal can display a divergent tone as
compared to its direct environment. Luckily, the way our speaker syllabified it was rather
different:

ɛ̀ɛ̀mbúto ɛ̀ɛ̀ / mbú / tò 'bellies'

A syllabification method like this allows us to analyze such sequences of a nasal and an
obstruent homogenous in place of articulation as prenasalized consonants, as is typical of
many Bantu languages (we all know the famous examples of [si.ᵐba] and [pu.ᵐba]). Thus we
can generate the following transcriptions:

eembúto [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐbú.tɔ̀] ‘bellies’

musamvu [mù.sââ.ᵐvù] ‘seven; 7’
eensolo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿsɔ̀.lɔ̀] ‘animal’
eeñcima [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᶮcí.mà] ‘monkey’
eeŋkumbi [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵑkûû.ᵐbì] ‘hoe’

You will notice that vowels which are displayed as short in the personal orthography are
displayed as long vowels in the IPA transcription when preceding such prenasalized
consonants. As we will see, long vowels outside of word-initial position most often carry a
falling tone in the language, whether the long vowel is lexically-determined or the product of
a phonological process (like prenasalization): these two features go hand-in-hand (see 4.1.
Low and falling tones). In light of everything we discussed so far, we could explain the
occurrence of a long vowel before a prenasalized consonant as the loss of a nasal's mora
before it shifts to the following syllable. It then becomes prenasalized onto the obstruent it
precedes to form its new syllable's complex onset. This nasal element cannot take its mora
along with it on the journey, as the */C/ onset of the following syllable blocks this nasal from
passing on its mora to the vowel of that syllable (and as soon as it becomes prenasalizes it
loses its status as a nasal consonant), so the vowel of its original syllable where this nasal
stems from receives the mora and combines it with its own. This results in a long vowel,
which then automatically receives a falling tone (V > V̂V̂ / _ C [+prenasalized]). Displayed
step-by-step:

musamvu *[mù.sàm.vù] ‘seven; 7’

*[mù.sà.mvù]
*[mù.sà.ᵐvù]
*[mù.sàà.ᵐvù]
[mù.sââ.ᵐvù]

Adding more weight to the argument, we also see forms starting with a sequence of a
nasal and a consonant:

ndábá ‘I see’
nsɔ̀mà ‘I read’
mpúlílà ‘I hear’

Using the syllabic method, we would analyze the second form as ǹ / sɔ̀ / mà and the third
form as m / pú / lí / là, but luckily the humming of the word by our speaker showed us that we
are dealing with two syllables instead of three and three syllables instead of four
respectively, meaning that the initial nasal-obstruent sequence combine into one onset,
indicating prenasalization:

ndábá [ⁿdá.bá] ‘I see’

nsoma [ⁿsɔ̀.mà] ‘I read’ ([σ̀-σ̀] when hummed)
mpúlíla [ᵐpú.lí.ɾà] ‘I hear’ ([σ́-σ́-σ̀] when hummed)

The question then becomes whether we would like to analyze prenasalized consonants as
simply C ignoring their complex nature for our current analysis, or rather NC indicating that
secondary articulation type is possible and is phonemically distinct from plain articulation. I
will opt for the latter eventually, but sticking with our discussion at hand, there is still no case
of a complex onset (*CCV) or any coda at all.
1.4. Palatalization
The next roadblock on our way to defend CV as the main syllable type are the following
forms:

ɛ̀ɛ̀βjɛ̂ ɛ̂ ɲââɲɟà '(multiple) fish'

ɛ̀ɛ̀βjɔ̂ɔ̂kùɲúwà 'drinks'
ɛ̀ɛ̀βjɔ̂ɔ̂jà 'feathers'

Allowing a y-glide as part of a complex onset automatically leads us to think of palatalized

consonants, and palatalization as a viable secondary articulation type in the language.
However, we can explain this finding away by incorporating noun classes into our analysis
(see A2. Noun classes) for an overview of the noun class system). Luganda, being a Bantu
language, makes use of noun class prefixes, which latch on to nouns, verbs and adjectives
to mark agreement to a head noun. As for the above examples, the story becomes even
more interesting when comparing these forms with their singular counterparts and trying to
identify which noun classes they employ:

ɛ̀ɛ̀cɛ̂ ɛ̂ ɲââɲɟà ɛ̀ɛ̀βjɛ̂ ɛ̂ ɲââɲɟà '(multiple) fish'

ɛ̀ɛ̀cɔ̂ɔ̂kùɲúwà ɛ̀ɛ̀βjɔ̂ɔ̂kúɲùwà 'drink(s)'
ɛ̀ɛ̀cɔ̂ɔ̂jà ɛ̀ɛ̀βjɔ̂ɔ̂jà 'feather(s)'

We can identify their noun class prefixes by comparing them to pairs which share
somewhat similar characteristics and the most similar prefixes out of the bunch:

Noun class 7: PB. *kɪ- > eci- 'various nouns, like diminutives, manners, ways, languages,
inanimate objects (SG)'
eci-bála [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.βá.là] 'fruit'
eci-tétéii [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî] 'dress' (lexically-determined long, falling)

Noun class 8: PB. *ʋi-, di- > ebi- 'various nouns, like diminutives, manners, ways, languages,
inanimate objects (PL)'
ebi-bála [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.βá.là] 'fruits'
ebi-tétéii [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî] 'dresses'

Reminding ourselves of the prenasalization process, we can assume that something

similar happened in these environments. After all, it is quite suspicious that we see a
following long vowel everytime an underlying /i/ of a noun class prefix seemingly turns into a
glide / palatalized element. We can assume the same principles: underlying /i/ of the noun
class prefix becomes devocalized when preceding another vowel (the nucleus of the
following syllable; in fact its own syllable) to */j/. Then it becomes palatalized onto the
preceding consonant /b/ to form a consonant onset, while allowing this complex onset to
take on the following vowel as a nucleus. It gives off its mora to this new nucleus, which
becomes long and receives falling tone automatically (V > V̂V̂ / C [+palatalized] _ ):

ebi-oya *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.ɔ̀.jà] 'feathers'

*[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βj.ɔ̀.jà]
*[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲ.ɔ̀.jà]
 *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̀.jà]
*[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̀ɔ̀.jà]
[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.jà]

As for such forms' singular counterparts, which employ NC7 prefix eci-, all of the above
steps apply but producing a clearly distinguishable palatalized element /ʲ/ onto a palatal
plosive /c/ is quite hard on the phonetic level, so we cannot hear it at all even though
phonologically it has been through the same process.

Noun class 7: PB. *kɪ- > eci- 'various nouns, including diminutives, manners, ways,
languages, inanimate objects (SG)'
eci-eñañja [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɛ̂ɛ̂.ɲââ.ᶮɟà] 'fish'
eci-oku-ñúa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̂ɔ̂.kù.ɲú.wà] 'drink'
eci-oya [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̂ɔ̂.jà] 'feather'

Noun class 8: PB. *ʋi-, di- > ebi- 'various nouns, including diminutives, manners, ways,
languages, inanimate objects (SG)'
ebi-eñaǹja [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɛ̀.ɲââ.ᶮɟà] '(multiple) fish'
ebi-oku-ñúa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.kù.ɲú.wà] 'drinks'
ebi-oya [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.jà] 'feathers'

All by all, this does not debunk our hypothesis of CV being the main syllable type, as
palatalization does not seem to be underlyingly present and palatalized consonants are not
phonemic, even though more data might reveal something interesting (see 1.5.
Labialization).

1.5. Apocope
For much the same reason why the palatalized output (/ʲ/) of underlying /i/ belonging to the
NC7-prefix eci- gets elided in speech (as it follows a palatal plosive), the very same /i/ can
get elided even when the following syllable carries a consonantal onset. This means that the
whole devocalization into palatalization process does not apply, but /i/ following /c/ just gets
elided as a form of apocope during swift speech:

eci-kopo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.kɔ̀.pɔ̀ ~ 'cup'

ɛ̀ɛ̀c.kɔ̀.pɔ̀]
eci-tétéii [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî ~ 'dress'
ɛ̀ɛ̀c.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî]

This does not mean that we would want to adopt [c] as being the exception to the
'no-consonants-in-coda' rule, and *Vc or even *CVc as viable syllable types. It is a mere
process of apocope, and we are lucky that such forms still allow /i/ to pop up when
pronounced slowly.
1.6. Epenthesis
There are also some entries which might hint to [j] being used epenthetically, meaning to
break up vowel sequences. There is a pair using the NC5 e(li)- and NC6 ama- prefixes:

e-yyembe [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɟ:ɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] 'horn'

ama-yeembe [àà.mà.jɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀ ~ 'horns'
àà.mà.ɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀]

And we are left wondering what the root of this pair might be, but the variation in the plural
form (the latter of which lacks [j] between vowels) means that the speaker is able to produce
vowel sequences and that [j] might be an epenthetic glide. Also consider the following
pronunciations:

[ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.lì.jà ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.ɾʲà] 'to eat' (See 2.7.1. /l/ Alveolar lateral approximant for /l/ > [ɾ]
allophony)

Which stems from Proto-Bantu *lɪ́.a. We could say that the underlying root in Luganda is
/lì.à/ as well, to which an epenthetic glide [j] is added when pronounced slowly ([ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.lì.jà]);
whereas in swift speech the underlying /i/ of which palatalizes onto the preceding /l/ (which
turns out as [ɾ]), allowing /à/ into its syllable (see 2.7.1. /l/ Alveolar lateral approximant for /l/
> [ɾ] assimilation).

1.7. Labialization
Aside from palatalized consonants, we also see forms like the following:

ɔ̀ɔ̀lwââlà 'fingernail'
ɔ̀ɔ̀mwâânà 'child'

These two nouns belong to the noun classes 11 and 1 respectively, employing the prefixes
olu-, like olu-búgo 'bark cloth', and omu-, like omu-sájja 'man'. These two nouns use eN-
(NC10 prefix, plural counterpart of NC11) and aba- (NC2 prefix) in their plural, just like the
nouns in question:

Noun class 1: PB. *mʊ- > omu- 'humans, animate entities (SG)'
omu-ana [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mʷââ.nà] 'child'
omú-bbi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mú.b:ì] 'thief'
omu-sájja [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.sá.ɟ:à] 'man'

Noun class 2: PB. *va- > aba- 'humans, animate entities (PL)'
aba-ana [àà.βââ.nà] 'children' (contraction, resulting in a long (falling)
vowel)
amá-bbi [àà.má.b:ì] 'thieves'
aba-sájja [àà.βà.sá.ɟ:à] 'men'

Noun class 11: PB. *lʊ- > olu- 'abstract nouns (SG)'
olu-ála [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.là] 'fingernail'
olú-búgo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lú.βú.gɔ̀] 'bark cloth'
olu-sózi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.sɔ́.zì] 'mountain'

Noun class 10: PB. *di-n- > eN- 'plural counterpart of noun classes 9 & 11'
eN-jála [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᶮɟá.la] 'fingernails' (what the underlying root might be, and where
[ɟ]
comes from needs further analysis)
eN-búgo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐbú.gɔ̀] 'bark cloths' (see 2.6. Noun classes 9-10 and
prenasalization)
eN-sózi [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿsɔ́.zì] 'mountains'

The same story applies: /u/ of the noun class prefix becomes devocalized into /w/ (when
preceding a vowel), which then latches onto /l/ or /m/ of the prefix to form a labialized
consonant onset and allowing the following vowel into its syllable structure, passing on its
mora to this vowel which then becomes long and automatically receives falling tone (I mark a
high vowel in a supposed root *ála as the plural counterpart eN-jála does reveal a high vowel
and is not prone to any assimilation processes influencing its tonal pattern):

olu-ála *[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.á.là] 'fingernail'

*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lw.á.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷ.á.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷá.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷáá.là]
[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.là]

The same can be said for verbal roots starting in a vowel which take on the noun class 15
prefix for denoting infinitives:

Noun class 15: PB. *kʊ- > oku- 'infinitives'

oku-bá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.βá] 'to be'
oku-káñuga [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.ká.ɲù.gà] 'to throw'
oku-lúma [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.lú.mà] 'to bite'
oku-sábá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.sá.βá] 'to beg'

oku-ata [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kʷââ.tà] 'to hold'

oku-andíka [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kʷââ.ⁿdí.kà] 'to write'
oku-ebaka [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kʷɛ̂ɛ̂.βà.kà] 'to sleep'
oku-ogela [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kʷɔ̂ɔ̂.gɛ̀.ɾà] 'to talk'

We also see labialized consonants pop up outside of the NC-prefix slot. Our finding is
quite related to the other semi-vowel (/i~j/) which gets completely apocopated under certain
circumstances, while /u/ gets devocalized and palatalized in swift speech, but luckily more
careful pronunciations reveal the underlying /u/ as such:

eci-okuñúa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̀.kù.ɲú.wà] 'drink'

[ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̀.kù.ɲʷá]
ebi-okuñúa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.kù.ɲú.wà] 'drinks'
 [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.kù.ɲʷá]

Based on all this, we would not have to adapt our draft to fit labialization: *C(ʷ)V. However,
when we moved into NC-inflections in relation to possessive pronouns in later sessions, the
tables were turned forcefully. Labialized consonants started popping up by the dozens. To
take a paradigm belonging to noun class 14, the plural counterpart of noun class 12
'diminutives' (aka-tale 'market')

obu-tale [ɔ̀ɔ̀.bù.tà.lɛ̀] bw-aŋge [bʷââ.ᵑgɛ̀] 'my markets'

bw-ó [bʷɔ́] 'your (sg) markets'
bw-é [bʷɛ́] 'his / her markets'
bw-af:e [bʷà.f:ɛ̀] 'our markets'
bw-amwe [bʷa.ᵐwɛ̀] 'your (pl) markets'
bw-abwe [bʷââ.bʷɛ̀] 'their markets'

Such a paradigm brings along some complications. Although (1SG.POSS) [bʷââ.ᵑgɛ̀] and
(2PL.POSS) [bʷââ.ᵐwɛ̀], and (3PL.POSS) [bʷââ.bʷɛ̀] in its first syllable at least, neatly
display lengthening of a following vowel due to devocalization and labialization of /u/ onto /b/
(giving off its mora), and such a lengthening is blocked or re-shortened in (3SG.POSS)
[bʷà.f:ɛ̀] (see 3.4. Vowel shortening), this lengthening rule does not apply in (2SG.POSS)
[bʷɔ́], (3SG.POSS) [bʷɛ́] or the last syllable of (3PL.POSS) [bʷââ.bʷɛ̀]. One could say that
compensatory lengthening does not apply when the resulting syllable structure turns out to
be only one syllable, but more data is needed to prove such a theory.
Even more, there is the personal pronoun (2SG) gwé, which when the session hosts
requested to be hummed by the speaker came off as extremely hilarious, but ended up
being incredibly insightful as the speaker does not recognize an underlying structure */gù.ɛ́/
in his humming ([σ́]), and the typical lengthening rule does not apply either (*[gʷɛ̂ɛ̂]). There
are also cases in which labialized consonants appear outside the noun class prefix slot, and
which even when pronounced slowly don't seem to reveal an underlying */u/ instead of a
labialization element - neither does the lengthening rule apply, nor does humming reveal
something underlyingly present:

omu-twé [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.tʷɛ́] 'head' [σ̀.σ̀.σ́]

emi-twé [ɛ̀ɛ̀.mì.tʷɛ́] 'heads'

oku-mwémwé-ntuka [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.mʷɛ́.mʷɛ̂ɛ̂.ⁿtù.kà] ‘to overlaugh, laugh exceedingly'

We even have to rethink our hypothesis of non-existence of palatalization in the language,

as the following paradigm based on a difference noun class shocks us in the same way as
the last one:

eli-ñó [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾì.ɲɔ́] ly-aŋge [lʲââ.ᵑgɛ̀] 'my tooth'

ly-ó [lʲɔ́] 'your (sg) tooth'
lyé [lʲɛ́] 'his / her tooth'
ly-af:e [lʲà.f:ɛ̀] 'our tooth'
ly-amwe [lʲa.ᵐwɛ̀] 'your (pl) tooth'
ly-abwe [lʲââ.bʷɛ̀] 'their tooth'
 As a side note, this paradigm of possessive pronouns becomes even more interesting
when looking at other types of noun class inflection. As we will see in 2.7.3. /w/ Labio-dental
approximant, we might want to redraw our whole sketch of the paradigm to suit /ââ/ as
underlying present, as a forms like [kà.βá.kà wââ.bʷɛ̀] 'their king' or [àà.mà.ɲɔ́ gââ.bʷɛ̀] ‘their
teeth’ cannot be explained through compensatory lengthening. This /ââ/, although it could
have otherwise been caused by surrounding labialization and prenasalization processes for
some entries, must rather be assumed to be underlyingly present for the whole paradigm,
only to be shortened in [1PL.POSS].
With all this, we will have to account for both labialization and palatalization in our draft of
the main syllable type.

1.8. Gemination
Knowing that long vowels are highly active in the language, we might not be surprised to find
out that consonant gemination is a feature in the language too:

e-ttáka [ɛ̀ɛ̀.t:á.kà] 'soil, land'

ffé [f:ɛ́] 'we'
omú-bbi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mú.b:ì] 'thief'

There is no sufficient data to prove that any of such geminated consonants are the output
of some underlying process (like contraction or apocope), and we do have a near-minimal
pair the speaker pointed out to be cautious of when willing to pronounce things correctly:

o-bútto [ɔ̀ɔ̀.βú.t:ɔ̀] 'cooking oil'

obutó [ɔ̀ɔ̀.βù.tɔ́] 'little'

To this we are forced to account for this feature in our draft of the main syllable type as well:
C(:)V.
One notable feature of gemination is that it blocks the lengthening process of a preceding
vowel (see 3.4. Vowel shortening).

1.9. Main syllable type(s)

From all that we have discussed up to this point, I would like to conclude with our draft of the
main, proto-typical syllable type (from which all others can be derived). This is still quite hard
of a task, as we know that we do have to account for a secondary articulation types
(prenasalization, palatalization, labialization), gemination and long vowels as phonemically
present, but there is no data which shows all three of these features (all five if we count the
secondary articulation types individually) in one syllable. Constructing an extreme
prototypical kind of syllable sketch would result to *C(ʷʲ)(:)V(:), but this is highly unnatural.
We do have on striking example:

omu-sambya [] 'hard type of tree'

 Here we do see prenasalization and palatalization on one consonant.

We cannot be sure that a long vowel following a palatalized or labialized consonant is

lexically-determined instead of phonologically-produced, I personally have not heard any
geminated palatalized or labialized consonants, and gemination blocks lengthening of a
preceding vowel. Thus, if we had to squeeze everything into one syllable, it would be
*C(ʷʲ)(:)V(:) in a string like *C(ʷʲ)(:)V(:).C(ʷʲ)(:)V(:), but never find something as complex as
this. A better solution would be to propose possible syllable types (in strings):
● ((C)V:.) C(ʲ)V(:) ~
● ((C)V:.) C(ʷ)V(:) ~
● ((C)V.) C(:)V(:)
2. Consonants
Moving on to consonants then, Luganda (based on the current data set and analyses)
makes use of of a small consonant inventory (14) if only counting underlying phonemes of
‘basic’ speech sounds (disregarding secondary articulation), moderately small if taking into
account their allophones and potential loan phonemes (17)), and average (24) if
prenasalized counterparts of all of the 8 (supposed) plosive phonemes and 4 fricative
phonemes count as well (Maddieson, 2013).

2.1. Consonant inventory

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar

Plosive (p) /t/ /c/ /k/

/b/ ~ [β] (d) /ɟ/ < j > /g/

Nasal /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ < ñ > /ŋ/

Fricative /f/ /s/

/v/ /z/

Approximant /w/ /j/ < y >

Lateral /l/ ~ [d:], [ɾ] < r >

approximant

Note that the consonants which have been displayed between rounded brackets are
allophones belonging to the coupled phoneme, such as [β] being an allophone of /b/. (p) is
displayed between rounded brackets as our current dataset is not sufficient enough to tell
whether p as a stand-alone segment is a loan phoneme, or actually belongs to the language.
The same counts for (d), which is present as the geminated output of /l/, or as the
consonantal part of prenasalized /ⁿd/.
The bilabial, labio-dental and labio-velar places of articulation constitute one row in our
chart (simply named ‘bilabial’), as bilabial plosives are complemented by labio-dental
fricatives and a labio-velar approximant in this language. Labio-dental plosives are relatively
rare cross-linguistically, so it would be nit-picky to make a clear-cut distinction between the
bilabial and labio-dental places of articulation. However, I do make a distinction between
approximants and lateral approximants in the chart instead of simply implementing /l/ in the
approximant row. One might argue that this is a nit-picky distinction as well, especially
considering the allophony /l/ > [ɾ], and [ɾ] is quite similar to the voiced alveolar approximant
[ɹ]. Nevertheless, historically speaking, this speech sound is derived from Proto-Bantu *l, and
based on speaker comments we would like to assume that it is underlyingly /l/ as a
phoneme, clearly lateral and distinct from /w/ and /j/.
Prenasalized, labialized and palatalized consonants (both plosives and fricatives) are not
displayed in the chart, as theoretically all consonants in the language can have counterparts
based on these three secondary articulation types.
2.2. Plosives
Starting off our analysis of Luganda's consonant inventory with plosives, we see that the
language has a moderate set of plosives showing some peculiarities.

2.2.1. /b/: Bilabial plosive

We start off our discussion of Luganda consonants with the voiced bilabial plosive (w.e.l.a.)
/b/, which, unfortunately (as the time of writing this sketch), does not offer us any solid
insight into a phonemic opposition between voiced and voiceless stops in the language, as
[p] as a stand-alone segment does not appear in our current dataset: only in loan vocabulary
(eci-kopo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.kɔ̀.pɔ̀] 'cup', e-cúpa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cú.pà] 'bottle' (Spanish chupar 'to suck')) or as a
prenasalized consonant:

mp-úlíla [ᵐpú.lí.là] 'I hear'

eN-péo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐpɛ́.ɔ̀] ‘wind’

However, as my notation of the underlying of 'wind' reveals, I presume [ᵐp] in this case to
be the result of a prenasalization process: an underlying nasal of noun class 9 eN- (denoting
animals and inanimates) assimilates its place of articulation to the following [p], and then
gets latched onto it as a prenasalized segment, shifting from one syllable to the next (see
1.2. Prenasalization). As much as I would like to implement /p/ as a phoneme for this reason,
I will have to wait until further data of [p] as a stand-alone segments has been retrieved.
What /b/ does offer, is perhaps one of Luganda's most iconic phonological features. Our
speaker often noted, after pronouncing some sort of bilabial element, that "it is like speaking
Spanish", and there was quite some variation in the way we, as a class, transcribed it
(focusing on the element in question):

obútto [ɔ̀ɔ̀.bú.t:ɔ̀ ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.βú.t:ɔ̀ ~ 'cooking oil'

ɔ̀ɔ̀.wú.t:ɔ̀ ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.ʋú.t:ɔ̀]

And at times our speaker was very adamant correcting our pronunciation, saying we
should employ a 'soft pronunciation' instead:

kabáka *[kà.bá.kà] > [kà.βá.kà ~ 'king'

kà.wá.kà ~ kà.ʋá.kà]
e-beele *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.bɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾɛ̀] > [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾɛ̀ ~ 'breast'
ɛ̀ɛ̀.wɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾɛ̀ ~ ɛ̀ɛ̀.ʋɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾɛ̀]

What does it mean when it is said that "it sounds like Spanish"? Keep in mind that our
speaker knows Spanish, so his insight should be taken as extremely valuable. To rule out
something first, it is clear that we are dealing with some kind of spirantization where /b/
between vowels becomes a continuant. The exact value of this spirantized allophone
became clear when we received the following minimal pair:

oku-bá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.βá] 'to be' oku-wá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.wá] 'to give'

 We were even instructed by our professor to closely look at the lips of the speaker while
he pronounced these words one after the other. The first entry was pronounced with the lips
in a horizontal position leaving a small cavity in the center (resulting in [β]) while the latter
was clearly pronounced with rounded lips (resulting in [w]). Knowing that [β] and [w] are
(allo)phonemically distinct, combined with the fact that it is way more common for a plosive
to spirantize into a fricative rather than an approximant, like how in our reference language
Spanish /b/ also becomes [β] intervocalically (bota ['bɔ.ta] 'boot' > una bota ['u.na 'βɔ.ta] 'a
boot'), plus a comment our speaker offered:

olu-bugó [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.βù.gɔ́] 'bark cloth' (not *[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.vù.gɔ́;

"It is b, not v.")

I believe it is quite safe to propose the rule: /b/ > [β] / V_V, and this rule even applies
across word boundaries:

[b] word-initially
bírí [bí.rí] 'two; 2'
bútto [bú.t:ɔ̀] 'cooking oil'

[β] intervocalically
eci-bátu [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.βá.tù] 'hand palm'
kabáka [kà.βá.kà] 'king' (not *[kà.bá.kà], corrected to …)
obútto [ɔ̀ɔ̀.βú.t:ɔ̀] 'cooking oil' (synonymous to bútto)
omu-túba [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.tú.βà] 'bark cloth tree'

Side-by-side
ba-kabáka [bà.kà.βá.kà] 'kings'
ba-lába [bà.lá.βà] 'they see'

Spirantization across word boundaries

bo-nná [bɔ̀.n:á] 'all of them'
balí bo-nná [bà.lí βɔ̀.n:á] 'all of those'

ba-lima [bà.lì.mà] 'they are digging'

aba-sájja ba-lima [à.βà.sá.j:à βà.lì.mà] 'the men are digging'

The only conditions under which this rule does not apply are when the consonant is
geminated (oku-bbá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.b:á] 'to steal', kúmi na bbírí 'twelve; 12') or when we are dealing
with a prenasalized bilabial plosive /bʷ/, to which we can say it is a different phoneme
altogether or that labialization blocks spirantization (eN-bugó zabwe [ɛ̀ɛ̀.mbù.gɔ́ zââ.bʷɛ̀]).
An exception to everything described would be the verb okú-ba [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kú.bà] 'to beat', the [b]
of which does not sound geminated like to verb oku-bbá 'to steal', and has a different tonal
pattern than the verb oku-βá 'to be' (LHL versus LLH). This could be due to the need for
differentiation: because these verbs would otherwise sound similar if /b/ spirantized in both
cases and oku- (noun class 15 prefix denoting infinitives), which normally carries low tones,
remained the same, okú-ba is pronounced with an unspirantized [b] and an irregular high
tone in the prefix. This extends our set of minimal pairs:
okú-ba [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kú.bà] (unspirantized allophone) 'to beat'
oku-bá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.βá] (spirantized allophone) 'to be'
oku-bbá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.b:á] (gemination blocks spirantization) 'to steal'
oku-wá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.wá] (approximant; different phoneme) 'to give'

Then again, there is the infinitival form oku-lába [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.lá.bà] 'to see', pronounced with a
clear [b] in some conjugations, while other conjugations are pronounced with [β], so at least
we have a relation between the two sounds and variation through the whole paradigm:

ndábá [ⁿdá.bá] 'I see'

alábá [àà.lá.βá] 'Look (sg)!'
mulábé [mù.là.βɛ́] 'Look (pl)!'
mulábá [mù.lá.bá] 'Do you (pl) see?'
olábá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lá.bá] 'Do you (sg) see?'

2.2.2. /t/: Alveolar plosive

Unfortunately, the voiceless alveolar plosive (w.e.l.a) /t/ doesn't offer us any insight to a
phonemic opposition between voiced and voiceless consonants either. Presenting this
speech sound first:

ci-táka [cì.tá.kà] 'brown'

eci-tétéîî [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî] 'dress'
o-kutú [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.tú] 'ear'
omu-tíma [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.tí.mà] 'heart'
táno [tá.nɔ̀] 'five; 5 (Kampala dialect)'

Unlike /b/, /t/ does not spirantize into a fricative in intervocalic position. The voiced
alveolar plosive [d] is present in the dataset, but only as a geminated consonant and the
entries are extremely scarce:

e-táka ddéne [ɛ̀ɛ̀.tá.kà d:ɛ́.nɛ̀] 'piece of land'

omu-ddo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.d:ɔ̀] 'grass' (speaker comment: "It is a 'strong d'.")
omu-ruwádde [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.rù.wá.d:ɛ̀] 'sick'

I would like to assume this segment is an allophone of some underlying phoneme which is
not *d, as if *d had been a phoneme, we would have seen it pop up more often throughout
our dataset like any other plosive - yet there is not a single entry with ungeminated *d. We
cannot propose that it might be the output of gemination of /t/, as [t:] does appear in our
dataset: bútto [bú.t:ɔ̀ ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.βú.t:ɔ̀] 'cooking oil'.
With no clear environment noticeable which might trigger assimilation of /t:/ into [d:], as
the language uses a 'CV.CV'-structure (in which all word-medial consonants necessarily
appear intervocalically, and we see the next pair of plosives ([k] and [g]) appearing in the
same type of environments while differing in voicing), we are left to look elsewhere in our
consonant inventory chart for answers. As we will see, the lateral approximant /l/ is an
interesting speech sound in the language as it is prone to assimilation to a tap. This
combined with the fact that there are no cases of geminated *[l:] in our dataset might indicate
that [d:] is the output of /l/-gemination in the form of fortition. This link does not have to be
farfetched, especially considering that /l/ has a tap allophone [ɾ] [forward reference], and all
are voiced alveolar elements which showcase assimilation across many languages (/ɾ/ > [d] /
n_ (fortition) in Kikuyu (Nilo-Saharan), ɾuta 'to give' + perfective n- > ⁿdutitɛ (nasalization)
'gave, have given' (Wahome & Subiyanto, 2023)

2.2.3. /c/: Voiceless palatal plosive

The voiceless palatal plosive (w.e.l.a.) /c/, along with its voiced counterpart, are very distinct
speech sounds compared to the other plosives. Up to the point of writing this sketch, there is
still disagreement going on in our project group about whether this pair is one of plosives or
affricates (/t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/). Two arguments I want to offer in favor of analyzing these as palatal
plosives:
● Although this does not necessarily need to say much, the lack of the post-alveolar
fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ is somewhat conspicuous if the language does employ their
respective affricate counterparts. We have not heard these supposed affricates
accidentally come out of our speaker’s mouth as a fricative even once, so we do not
need to feel forced to perceive these speech sounds as being post-alveolar
consonants;
● The presence of a palatal nasal, which is clearly (phonemically) distinct from the
alveolar nasal (see the examples and near-minimal pair na versus ñá in 2.4. Nasals),
opens the palate as an active place of articulation, while the post-alveolum remains
closed-off if we analyze these segments as palatal plosives. Structurally, this is most
fitting and pleasing.

eci-kunta [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.kûû.ⁿtà] 'bark cloth bedsheet'

eci-oya [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̂ɔ̂.jà] 'feather'
emi-cíla [ɛ̀ɛ̀.mì.cí.ɾà] 'tails'

2.2.4. /j/: Voiced palatal plosive

While no minimal pairs are available showcasing a phonemic opposition between /c/ and /ɟ/,
the sheer amount of entries which use [ɟ] ~ [d͡ʒ] entered by members of our project group in
the database show that we perceive this segment as being voiced, and we have already
established an opposition between voiced and voiceless consonants.

jó [ɟɔ́] 'yesterday'
o-ja-kúbba [ɔ̀ɔ̀.ɟà.kú.b:à] 'you (sg) will steal'
omu-sájja [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.sá.ɟ:à] 'man'

2.2.5. /k/: Voiceless velar plosive

We are fortunate enough that with our velar set of plosives, we do see a wide-scale usage of
both the voiceless velar plosive (w.e.l.a.) /k/, and its voiced counterpart. /k/ is part of two
noun classes:
Noun class 12: PB. *ka- > aka- 'diminutives'
aka-gwa [àà.kà.gʷà] 'string (itself a thin object)'
aka-motoka [àà.kà.mɔ̀.tɔ̀.kà] 'small car (from e-motoka)'
aka-mweñumweñu [àà.kà.mʷɛ̀.ɲù.mʷɛ̀.ɲù] 'sort of a smile, a subtle smile'

Noun class 15: PB. *kʊ- > oku- 'infinitives'

oku-kóla [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.kɔ́.là] 'to do'
oku-kwata [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.kʷââ.tà] 'to hold'
oku-sábá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.sá.βá] 'to beg'

2.2.6. /g/: Voiced velar plosive

The voiced velar plosive (w.e.l.a.) /g/ is also used quite a lot, but unfortunately no minimal
pairs are currently available. The next best option would be to look at an environment which
might trigger voicing assimilation, but this seems impossible as well as we are dealing with
(to put it simply) strings of CV.CV: consonants (whatever secondary articulation type they
might employ) only appear in onset position, they are always followed by a vowel nucleus
(whether short or long), and they always follow a preceding vowel outside of word-initial
position.
What we can show, however, is that [k] appears within the environment of voiced
consonants:

aba-kázi [à.βà.ká.zì] 'women'

ba-kabáka [ba.kà.βá.kà] 'kings'
nẑiika [ⁿzîî.kà] 'I bury'

And [g] appears within the environment of voiceless consonants, ruling out a distal place
assimilation process:

omu-sogasoga [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.sɔ̀.gà.sɔ̀.gà] '(type of) weak tree'

[k] and [g] can even appear alongside each other, ruling out assimilation to a neighboring
velar plosive counterpart:

aka-gwa [àà.kà.gʷà] 'string'

naabageleka [nââ.βà.gɛ̀.ɾɛ̀.kà] 'queen'
mukága [mù.ká.gà] 'six; 6'

2.3. Fricatives
As for the fricatives we do see sets of a voiceless and a voiced counterpart fricative
complementing each other, but only for the labio-dental and alveolar places of articulation;
Luganda does not employ palatal or velar fricatives, nor bilabial fricatives outside of
allophony ([β] discussed in 2.2.1. /b/: Bilabial plosive).
For much the same reason why we identify /k/ and /g/ and /c/ and /ɟ/ as distinct
phonemes, we can say the same for fricatives as there are no clear intervocalic
environments which might trigger voicing assimilation for fricatives, and we have data on
three of these segments (two voiceless fricatives, one voiced) occurring word-initially.
Another finding which might add more weight to the argument of a phonemic opposition
between voiceless and voiced fricatives is the fact that all of these can function as the
fricative part of a prenasalized consonant, and no clear environment which could trigger
voice assimilation can be found in such a set either (see 2.5. Prenasalized consonants for
more examples).

2.3.1. /f/: Voiceless labio-dental fricative

Word-initially
ffe [f:ɛ̀] 'we (1PL)'

Intervocalically
eci-fúba [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.fú.bà] 'chest'
gwa-f:e [gʷà.f:ɛ̀] 'our (inflected for noun class 3:
NC3.PL-1PL.POSS)'
omu-fené [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.fɛ̀.nɛ́] 'jackfruit tree'

2.3.2. /v/: Voiced labio-dental fricative

e-viivi [ɛ̀ɛ̀.vîî.vì] 'knee'
omu-volé [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.vɔ̀.lɛ́] 'type of tree'

2.3.3. /s/: Voiceless alveolar fricative

Word-initially
sátu [sá.tù] 'three; 3'
sébo [sɛ́.βɔ̀] 'sir'

Intervocalically
eli-so [ɛ̀ɛ̀.lîî.sɔ̀] 'eye'
e-suuka [ɛ̀ɛ̀.sûû.kà] 'bedsheet'
omu-sájja [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.sá.ɟ:à] 'man'

2.3.4. /z/: Voiced alveolar fricative

Word-initially
zaa-ŋge [zââ.ᵑgè] 'my (inflected for noun class 9;
NC9.PL-1SG.POSS)'
Intervocalically
ama-azi [àà.mââ.zì] 'feces'
oku-ziika [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.zîî.kà] 'to bury'
omu-ezi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mʷɛ̂ɛ̂.zi] 'moon(s)'
Alongside each other
olu-sózi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.sɔ́.zì] 'mountain'

2.4. Nasals
When identifying nasal values, as with every other set of related speech sounds, we would
like to have minimal pairs showcasing a phonemic opposition, which are unfortunately
unavailable at the time of writing this sketch. The next best option would be to look at
possible environments for assimilation. This is quite hard for Luganda, since (as said before)
consonants only appear in onset position, are necessarily followed by a vowel nucleus, and
are also necessarily preceded by a vowel outside of word-initial position, creating strings of
(C)V.CV.

2.4.1. /m/: Bilabial nasal

We do, however, see that the voiced bilabial nasal (w.e.l.a.) /m/ appears in the environment
of alveolar elements:

ama-so [àà.mââ.sò] 'eyes'

omu-twé [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.tʷɛ́] 'head'
mañí [mà.ɲí] 'I know'

2.4.2. /n/: Alveolar nasal

And we also see that the voiced alveolar nasal (w.e.l.a.) /n/ appears in the environment of
bilabial elements:

aba-ana [àà.βââ.na] 'children'

bo-nná [bɔ̀.n:á] 'all of them'
naabageleka [nââ.βà.gè.ɾè.kà] 'queen'

We even see these those nasals appearing within hand-reach of each other, ruling out the
possibility of distal assimilation of the place of articulation regarding nasals:

kúmi na emu [kú.mì nɛ̂ɛ̂.mù] 'eleven; 11' (contraction: /nà/ + /ɛ̀ɛ̀.mù/

> [nɛ̀ɛ̀.mù])
kúmi na mukága [kú.mì nà mù.ká.gà] 'sixteen; 16'
kúmi na munáná [kú.mì nà mù.ná.ná] 'eighteen; 18'

2.4.3. /ɲ/: Palatal nasal

Luganda also employs a voiced palatal nasal (w.e.l.a.) //, which is only expected as there are
palatal consonants in the inventory (/j/, but also /c/ and /ɟ/, making this place of articulation a
highly active one like the others) and all other predictable nasal slots of articulation (bilabial,
alveolar, velar) are also being used. Once again, this nasal appears alongside other nasals,
and more notably, it does not only appear preceding [i], a relatively common environment
which triggers assimilation for some underlying nasal into [ɲ], but also preceding other
vowels:

[ɲ] near other nasals

kúmi na ñá [kú.mì nà ɲá] 'fourteen; 14'
oku-máña [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.má.ɲà] 'to know'

[ɲ] preceding [i]

e-ñido [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲîî.ⁿdɔ̀] 'nose(s)'

[ɲ] with other vocalic environments

ama-ñó [àà.mà.ɲɔ́] 'teeth'
e-ñañca [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲââ.ᶮcà] 'lake'
omú-ño [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mú.ɲɔ̀] 'salt'

Near-minimal pair
na [nà] ‘and (linking element)’
ñá [ɲá] 'four; 4'

2.4.4. /ŋ/: Velar nasal

Next in line is the voiced velar nasal (w.e.l.a.) /ŋ/, which completes the velar row of
consonants in our chart (alongside /k/ and /g/). Even though not much data is available on
this being a stand-alone segment (and not the nasalization element of a prenasalized
consonant: [ŋk] / [ŋg]), our speaker gave us very valuable information when he told us that "It
is a letter which is disappearing in Luganda, but speakers are fighting hard for it not to
disappear. (...) Some people say 'nggââmba', but that's not Luganda. You cannot say
'ngââmba'. There will be two of those letters:"

ŋŋamba [ŋ:ââ.mbà] 'Tell me!' (not *[ŋgââ.mbà])

Strikingly, the IPA symbol for this speech sound has even been adopted in Luganda
orthography, as the speaker wrote this word on a paper sheet as ŋŋaamba. Other examples
include:

eN-ââŋa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ŋââ.ŋà] 'type of bird'

eN-ano [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ŋà.nɔ̀] 'baking flower'
eN-oma [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ŋɔ̀.mà] 'drum'

This combined with the same reasons why we analyze /ɲ/ as a phoneme, and the
proposal of distal place assimilation being a farfetched concept anyways, I would like to
analyze /ŋ/ as a true phoneme as well.
2.5. Prenasalized consonants
Having established a phonemic opposition between voiced and voiceless stops, with four
places of articulation available (bilabial, alveolar, palatal and velar) which are employed by
stops, fricatives and nasals, the encounter of a wide array of prenasalized consonants is not
out of the ordinary. Here is where Luganda's exocity comes into play: where some Bantu
languages like to employ implosives or (even a combination of) secondary articulation types
(like aspiration, ejectivity, etc.), Luganda uses prenasalized stops and fricatives (thus
excluding the alveolar lateral approximant / alveolar tap [l~ɾ] from getting prenasalized), and
the condition is of course that both elements are homogeneous place of articulation. This
means that /t/, /d/, /s/ and /z/, all alveolar stops, receive /ⁿ/ as their nasal element, whereas
palatals receive /ᶮ/.

Prenasalized bilabials ~ labio-dentals

/ᵐp/
eN-péo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐpɛ́.ɔ̀] ‘wind’
mp-úlíla [ᵐpú.lí.ɾà] ‘I hear’

/ᵐb/
omu-yembe [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.jɛɛ.ᵐbɛ̀] ‘horn’
eN-búgo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐbú.gɔ̀] ‘bark cloths’

/ᵐv/
musamvu [mù.sââ.ᵐvù] ‘seven; 7’

Prenasalized alveolars
/ⁿt/
en-té [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿté] ‘cow’
oku-mwémwéntuka [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.mʷɛ́.mʷɛ́ɛ́.ⁿtù.kà] ‘to overlaugh, laugh exceedingly'

/ⁿd/
e-ñindo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲîî.ⁿdɔ̀] ‘nose(s)’
bu-ganda [bù.gââ.ⁿdà] ‘Bugandans’

/ⁿs/
eN-siŋgo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿsîî.ᵑɡɔ̀] ‘neck’
eN-solo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿsɔ̀.lɔ̀] ‘animal’

/ⁿz/
inzé [îî.ⁿzé] ‘I (first-person singular)
nzîîka [ⁿzîî.kà] ‘I bury’

Prenasalized palatals
/ᶮc/
eN-címa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᶮcí.mà] ‘monkey’

/ᶮj/
eN-anja [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲââ.ᶮjà] ‘lake’
eN-jála [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᶮjá.là] ‘fingernail’

Prenasalized velars
[ᵑk]
eN-kúba [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵑkú.bà] ‘rain’
eN-kumbi [.ᵑkûû.ᵐbi] ‘hoe’

[ᵑɡ]
eN-gálo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵑɡá.lɔ̀] ‘finger’
eN-siŋgo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿsîî.ᵑɡɔ̀] ‘neck’

A detailed analysis of prenasalized consonants as single phonemes and phonological

units was offered in the chapter on syllabification (see 1.2. Prenasalization). The reason why
the speech sounds have been presented between square brackets, is because sometimes
they are the output of an assimilation process, namely the topic of the next paragraph:
nasalization of a preceding nasal onto a following obstruent.

2.6. Noun classes 9-10 and prenasalization

Having established the usage of a noun class 5 prefix e(li)-, we see that plenty forms use
this prefix, like:

Noun class 5: PB. *lɪ > e(li)- 'various nouns, including liquids and mass nouns (SG)'
eli-ño [ɛ̀ɛ̀.lí.ɲɔ̀] 'tongue'
eli-so [ɛ̀ɛ̀.lîî.sɔ̀] 'eye'
e-beele [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βɛ̂ɛ̂.ɾɛ̀] 'breast'
e-gumba [ɛ̀ɛ̀.gûû.ᵐbà] 'bone'

However, saying that all forms using something like an e- prefix belong to noun class 5
would be silly, especially since nouns truly belonging to class 9 take the noun class 6 prefix
ama- in the plural:

Noun class 6: PB. *ma > ama- 'various nouns, including liquids and mass nouns (PL)'
ama-ño [àà.mà.ɲɔ̀] 'tongues'
ama-so [àà.mââ.sɔ̀] 'eyes'
ama-beele [àà.mà.βɛ̂ɛ̂.ɾɛ̀] 'breasts'
ama-gumba [àà.mà.gûû.ᵐbà] 'bones'

And we see a nasal popping up after this e- in plenty of forms which we can categorize
into noun classes 9 and 10, which Luganda (and many if not all Bantu languages) inherited
from Proto-Bantu *n- and *di-n-:

Noun class 9: PB. *n- > eN- 'animals, inanimates'

eN-bogó [ɛ̀ɛ̀m.bɔ̀.gɔ́] 'buffalo'
eN-té [ɛ̀ɛ̀n.té] 'cow'
eN-solo [ɛ̀ɛ̀n.sɔ̀.lɔ̀] 'animal'
eN-címa [ɛ̀ɛ̀ɲ.cí.mà] 'monkey'
eN-koko [ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋ.kɔ̀.kɔ̀] 'chicken'

Noun class 10. PB. *di-n- > eN- plural of noun classes 9 'animals, inanimates' and 11 olu-
'abstract and mass ~ collective nouns' (olu-búto 'belly')
eN-búto [ɛ̀ɛ̀m.bú.tɔ̀] 'bellies'
eN-vílí [ɛ̀ɛ̀m.ví.ɾí] 'hair'
eN-kúba [ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋ.kú.bà] 'rain'
eN-gálo [ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋ.ɡá.lɔ̀] 'fingers'

Here we observe place assimilation of some underlying nasal to a following plosive or

fricative. In the case of a following nasal belonging to the root, the underlying nasal of the
prefix fully assimilates its place to the following one, resulting in a geminated nasal (see 3.4.
Vowel shortening for shortening of word-initial vowels):

eN-méle [ɛ̀.m:ɛ́.ɾɛ̀] 'food'

eN-ñindo [ɛ̀.ɲ:îî.ⁿdɔ̀] 'nose(s)'

We might be able to easily deduct what the value of the underlying nasal might be, as
there are nouns which fall into the same semantic range and make use of an eN-prefix, this
time lacking a consonant onset in the following syllable:

eN-aaŋa [ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋ.ââ.ŋà] 'type of bird'

eN-ano [ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋ.à.nɔ̀] 'baking flower'
eN-oma [ɛ̀ɛ̀ŋ.ɔ̀.mà] 'drum'

Since these nouns are using an eN-prefix and also fall into the particular semantic
categories in question, and we are dealing with a vocalic environment which (relatively
speaking) is a quite hard thing to deal with when trying to defend some type of allophony, I
will safely assume that /ŋ/ is the underlying nasal.
We are not done yet. As you have guessed, all of the above IPA transcriptions are actually
incorrect. As we have seen in the chapter on syllables (1.2. Prenasalization), I am not ready
to make an exception to the rule that consonants cannot appear outside of onset-position
just for nasals specifically, especially when members of this language family are known for
their exocity in secondary articulation types and extensive use of their nasal cavity. We
proposed a syllabic method first in which we could analyze nasals in coda-position to be
nuclei of their own syllable, but this brings along complications as well. Fortunately, our
speaker offered us insight to the exact nature of these segments through syllabification
either verbally or by means of humming:

eN-búto èè / mbú / tò [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐbú.tɔ̀] 'bellies'

nsoma [σ̀-σ̀] [ⁿsɔ̀.mà] ‘I read’

Thus we have analyzed such sequences as prenasalized consonants, and we can see
that the process of nasals becoming prenasalized onto a following obstruent still applies
when morpheme boundaries meet, as the first form listed above was one which got
syllabified verbally. Presenting our earlier lists of noun class 9 and 10 nouns again, now with
correct IPA orthography:
Noun class 9
eN-bogó [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐbɔ̀.gɔ́] 'buffalo'
eN-té [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿté] 'cow'
eN-solo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿsɔ̀.lɔ̀] 'animal'
eN-címa [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᶮcí.mà] 'monkey'
eN-koko [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵑkɔ̀.kɔ̀] 'chicken'

Noun class 10
eN-búto [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐbú.tɔ̀] 'bellies'
eN-vílí [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐví.ɾí] 'hair'
eN-kúba [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵑkú.bà] 'rain'
eN-gálo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵑɡá.lɔ̀] 'fingers'

2.7. Approximants
We are not dealing with a 'remaining' category of consonants, as those which are left are all
approximants. In our consonant inventory chart and the paragraph following it, I have
explained why I did not simply categorize /l/ as 'another approximant' and placed it alongside
/w/ and /j/ on the same level of manner of articulation. For now, this difference is overlooked,
as we are just discussing them individually.

2.7.1. /l/: Alveolar lateral approximant

The alveolar lateral approximant (w.e.l.a.) [l] is an interesting segment in that it seems to be
in complete free variation with the alveolar tap [ɾ]. We caught on to this variation immediately,
and words which have been cited as having [l] are often repeated but pronounced with [ɾ]
instead, or the other way around:

e-beele [ɛ̀ɛ̀.bɛ̀ɛ̀.lɛ̀ ~ ɛ̀ɛ̀.bɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾɛ̀] 'breast'

mp-úlíla [ᵐpú.lí.là ~ ᵐpú.lí.ɾà] 'I hear'
olu-lími [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.lí.mì] 'tongue' (Kampala dialect)
[ɔ̀ɔ̀.ɾù.ɾí.mì] 'tongue' (West-Ugandan dialect)
wa-gulu [wà.gù.lù ~ wà.gù.rù] 'up'

This feature also carries over to the speaker's use of English, which he speaks natively,
but this part of Luganda phonology seems to be integral to such a degree that it hinders a
more standard pronunciation of English:

'belly' ['bɛ.ɾi] 'colour' ['kɔ.ɾɔr]

'cloth' [kɾɔθ] 'exactly' [ɛ:.'ksak.ɾi]

Remarkably, there were instances during which the speaker persisted that a word needed
to be pronounced with an 'L' (using an English orthographical term), but his pronunciation of
the word sometimes indicated that the phonetic product contained a tap instead:

oku-liyá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.lì.já ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.ɾʲá] 'to eat' ("It is L.")

 Such a statement is most likely based on Luganda orthography, meaning that the word in
written form does contain an 'L'. However, the language's phonology makes it harder to
actively distinguish between the two allophones in speech. Sadly, during the time of writing
this sketch, the speaker has not yet provided us with any written data on the current topic.
For (perhaps) another interesting piece of evidence we have to incorporate some
historical linguistics into our analysis. This is also the main reason why I identify the
underlying phoneme as being /l/, as comparatively, we see *l in reconstructed Proto-Bantu
words where Luganda shows variation, and where other languages (like Swahili) have kept
this *l.

Proto-Bantu Swahili Luganda

*lʊ-lɪ́.mi u-limi olu-lími [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.lí.mì ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.ɾù.ɾí.mì]

*lɪ́.a ku-la oku-liyá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.lì.já ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.ɾʲá]
m-ku-lima omu-límí [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.lí.mí ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ɾí.mí]

Even more historical evidence lies in a comparison between noun classes, to see how
noun classes which make use of a *l in Proto-Bantu developed into [l~ɾ] in Luganda:

Noun class 5: PB. *lɪ > e(li~ri)- 'big objects, liquids, mass nouns'
eli-ño [ɛ̀ɛ̀.lì.ɲɔ́ ~ ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɾì.ɲɔ́] 'tooth'

Noun class 11: PB. *lʊ > olu- ~ oru- 'abstract nouns'
olu-lími [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.lí.mì ~ ɔ̀ɔ̀.ɾù.ɾí.mì] 'tongue'

One constraint (a degree of predictability) we might be able to place on this type of

allophony as a rule (based on the current set of data), could be that when multiple
occurences of /l/ are present in a word, either the latter gets pronounced as [ɾ] or both are
pronounced as [ɾ] - [ɾ] is never able to precede [l] later in the word. The reasoning behind this
could be an urge for dissimilation. As multiple instances of [l] are quite hard to pronounce in
swift speech without creating a stutter, following (or all) approximants turn into something
more tap-like ([ɾ]).

Non-assimilation
mp-úlíla [ᵐpú.lí.là] 'I hear'
olu-gálo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.gá.lɔ̀] 'fingers'
olu-ala [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.là] 'fingernail'

[l] preceding [ɾ] (dissimilation)

bá-úlíla [bá.ú.lí.ɾà] 'they hear'
mp-úlíla [ᵐpú.lí.ɾà] 'I hear'
omu-landíla [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.lââ.ⁿdí.ɾà] 'root'
omu-lílo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.lí.ɾɔ̀] 'fire'
olu-alelo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.lɛ̀.ɾɔ̀] 'today' (*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.lɛ̀.lò] is incorrect)

Double assimilation
oku-úríra [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.ú.ɾí.ɾà] 'to hear'
omu-landíra [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ɾââ.ⁿdí.ɾà] 'root'
olu-lími [ɔ̀ɔ̀.ɾù.ɾí.mì] 'tongue'

Even so, assuming this theory to be true, there are confusing entries present in the data
set in which only one [ɾ] is present without it being pronounced as [l] when repeated, like
eci-ré 'cloud' [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.ɾɛ́], eci-gere 'foot' [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.gɛ̀.ɾɛ̀] and ebi-gere 'feet' [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.gɛ̀.ɾɛ̀], and
oku-ógera 'to talk' [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kʷɔ́.gɛ̀.ɾà]. Thus we might rather want to say the two allophones are, in
principle, in free variation, with the phenomenon of dissimilation being quite common.
This phoneme is also one to assimilate completely, meaning both in place and manner of
articulation. One such case of assimilation to [d:] when geminated was discussed earlier
(see 2.2.2. Alveolar plosive). Another case is assimilation into [n] when following an alveolar
nasal. Compare the adjectival root lunj (~ lunji) ‘good, handsome’ in the following forms:

omu-sájja omu-lunj [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.sá.ɟ:à ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ɾûû.ᶮɟ] ‘handsome man’

aba-sájja aba-lunj [àà.bà.sá.ɟ:à àà.bà.ɾûû.ᶮɟ] ‘handsome men’

eN-uumba eN-lunj [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲûû.ᵐbà ɛ̀.n:ûû.ᶮɟ] ‘good house’

ama-uumba ama-lunj [àà.mà.jûû.ᵐbà àà.mà.ɾûû.ᶮɟ] ‘good houses’

(Writing off the word-final [ᶮɟ] as the remainder of an apocopated syllable,) we see a
geminated [n:] pop up as the output of the combination of noun class 9 eN- and the root
[ɾûû.ᶮɟ]. The most fitting theory would be to propose that the underlying nasal of eN-
assimilates to the place of articulation of the following consonant (as it always does),
resulting in en-. Then the /l/ of the root assimilates its manner of articulation to the preceding
/n/, resulting in gemination. This finding is stunning, as we can now truly say that only
sequences of a nasal plus an obstruent (plosive or fricative) results in a prenasalized
consonant, and its combination with an approximant like /l/ does not. Hence why we don’t
see use of *ⁿl in the language in cases like this, or later down in word-medial position.
The same process applies when looking at the following pair, the singular using NC11
prefix olu- en the plural using NC10 prefix eN-, along with the root -lími 'tongue' (see 3.4.
Vowel shortening for shortening of word-initial vowels):

olu-lími [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.lí.mì] 'tongue'

eN-lími [ɛ̀.n:í.mì] 'tongues'

We also see the reverse situation happening, and there are truly some interesting quirks
to this /l/-phoneme. When it, as part of a prefix, precedes a nasal belonging to the root, the
following nasal assimilates its manner of articulation to the lateral approximant, resulting in a
geminate lateral, which automatically fortifies into [d:] (see 2.2.2. Alveolar plosive):

e-ttáka *ddéne [ɛ̀ɛ̀.t:á.kà d:ɛ́.nɛ̀] 'piece of land'

ama-ttáka ma-néne [àà.mà.t:á.kà mà.nɛ́.nɛ̀] 'pieces of land'

Extracting the root of the modifier as *néne from the plural form inflected for noun class 6,
ama- for nouns and ma- for modifiers, its singular counterpart must be inflected for noun
class 5, meaning e(li)- for nouns and a similar prefix for modifiers, most likely not carrying a
form-initial vowel but maintaining /l/ (*l(i-)), which clashes with the following /n/ of the root
*néne.
2.7.2. /w/: Labio-velar approximant
For many languages across the globe we might pose the question whether the approximants
[w] and [j], which could be the consonantal output of semi-vowels, are real underlying
phonemes or whether they are just the product of devocalization. As for the voiced
labio-velar approximant (w.e.l.a.) /w/, we have seen that devocalization is indeed a
phonological process in Luganda, as /u/ belonging to a noun class prefix does become
devocalized and palatalized onto a preceding consonant when the following segment is a
vowel (olu-ala [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.là] 'fingernail', omu-ana [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mʷââ.nà] 'child'), and we have also seen
the same process happen outside of the noun class prefix slot during swift speech
eci-okúñua [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̀.kú.ɲù.wà ~ ɛ̀ɛ̀.cɔ̀.kú.ɲʷà] 'drink'; see 1.5. Labialization). However, to
propose that each instance of [w] is actually underlyingly /u/, and that the clash of two nuclei
(*u.V) caused this devocalization, would be more of a historical analysis rather than a
descriptive one, even though data on [w] as a simple onset consonant is scarce:

Noun class 16: PB. *pa- > wa- 'locative'

wa-gúlu [wà.gú.ɾù] 'up'
wa-ansí [wââ.ⁿsí] 'on the ground' (contraction)

(The paradigm of possessive pronouns in 1.5. Labialization has been altered here to suit
/ââ/ as underlyingly present in all forms, as it could not be explained otherwise in
3PL.POSS).

kabaka [kà.βá.kà] w-aange [wââ.ᵑgɛ̀] 'my king'

w-ó [wɔ́] 'your (sg) king'
w-é [wɛ́] 'his / her king'
w-af:e [wà.f:ɛ̀] 'our king'
w-amwe [wà.ᵐwɛ̀] 'your (pl) king'
w-aabwe [wââ.bʷɛ̀] 'their king'

2.7.3. /y/: Palatal approximant

The same story applies for the voiced palatal approximant (w.e.l.a.) /j/. We have seen [j] as
an epenthetic glide ([àà.mà.jɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀ ~ àà.mà.ɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] 'horns', see …) and as a devocalized
into palatalized element (ebi-eñaɲja [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɛ̀.ɲââ.ᶮɟà] '(multiple) fish', ebi-okúñua
[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.kú.ɲù.wà] 'drinks'), but we cannot deny, although our data is scarce, that [j] does pop
up as an onset consonant and the speaker recognizes it as such when humming or
syllabifying (instead of a separate nucleus syllable */i.V./ > [ja.])

(Potential) cases of epenthetic [j]

ama-uumba [àà.mà.jûû.ᵐbà] ‘houses’ (singular eN-uumba [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲûû.ᵐbà])

omu-yéémbe [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.jɛ́ɛ́.ᵐbɛ̀] ‘mango’

emi-yéémbe [ɛ̀ɛ̀.mì.jɛ́ɛ́.ᵐbɛ̀] ‘mangoes’ (notable exceptions to long
vowels having falling tone)
omu-yembe [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.jɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] ‘horn’
obu-yembe [ɔ̀ɔ̀.bù.jɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] ‘big horn’
eci-yembe [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.jɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] ‘big ugly horn’

(A counter-argument would be that /j/ is underlyingly present, otherwise the high vowel /u/
or /i/ of the prefix would devocalize and latch onto the preceding consonant, forming one
syllable with the following vowel (belonging to the root) and lengthening it.)

y:é [j:ɛ́] ‘he / she (in discourse, not currently present)’

Possessive pronouns
eN-té [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ⁿtɛ́] y-aaŋgé [jââ.ᵑgɛ́] ‘my cow’
y-ó [jɔ́] ‘your (sg) cow’
y-é [jɛ́] ‘his / her cow’
y-af:é [jà.f:ɛ́] ‘our cow’
y-aamwe [jââ.ᵐwɛ̀] ‘your (pl) cow’
y-aabwe [jââ.bwɛ̀] ‘their cow’

3. Vowels
We have already discussed a great deal about how vowels behave in the language and what
kind of processes influence vowels. Here we will recap those discussions and add some
more.

3.1. Vowel inventory

Making a vowel chart of Luganda has proven to be quite a tedious task, as even well into
later elicitation sessions the discussion was brought up about the exact nature and
phonemic status of some vowel qualities, namely the distinctions between [e] and [ɛ], [o] and
[ɔ], and to a lesser degree also [i] and [ɪ]. In the earliest sessions, session leaders
transcribed forms in which they seemingly heard high-mid and low-mid vowels alongside
each other:

[è.cè.ɲà.ɲà] ‘fish’ versus [ɛ̀.bì.rɛ́] ‘cloud’

While by the end of the study block most of our ears were fine-tuned to hear [ɛ] and [ɔ]
(most of the time). There are no minimal pairs showcasing a phonemic opposition between
these low-mid vowels and the high-mid ones [e] and [o]. However, with recent entries in
which some still perceive [e] and [o], these people raised the question of whether we would
not like to keep a keen ear on the exact realization of the underlying vowels (which I believe
to be [ɛ] and [ɔ)], for the sake of a proper IPA transcription. Personally, I do not. There is no
data indicating a phonemic opposition, the environments in which some like to perceive an
[e]-output of /ɛ/ or an [o]-output of /ɔ/ are still unclear to me, and I do not believe such
differences to be influential to any phonological analyses. That is why I simply drafted my
vowel inventory like the following:

Front Back

High /i/ /u/

High-mid /ɛ/ < e > /ɔ/ < o >

Low /a/

As you will have noticed, the personal orthography has employed e and o as the
representations of /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ throughout the paper. There is a balanced opposition between
front and back vowels, except for /a/ which lacks a back counterpart, but I believe it is a
given that Bantu languages do not implement /ɑ/ in their vowel inventory.

3.2. Vowel lengthening

We have seen multiple processes which cause vowel lengthening of a vowel which would
otherwise be short, namely (see 1.2.) prenasalization, (1.3.) palatalization and (1.6.)
labialization, which all boil down to the same principle: an (underlying) nasal or high vowel of
a noun class prefix loses its consonantal status either due to it not suiting the language’s
phonotactics (no consonants in coda positions for nasals) or when preceding a vowel of the
nominal root (high vowel adjacent to another vowel; devocalization), and while latching itself
onto a surrounding consonant to form a complex consonant using a secondary articulation
type, it loses its moraic element and passes it on to the preceding vowel (in the case of
prenasalization) or the following vowel (in the cases of palatalization and labialization), which
now has two morea turning it into a long (falling) vowel. See the following examples earlier
given of musamvu ‘seven’, ebi-oya ‘feathers’ and olu-ála ‘fingernail’:

musamvu *[mù.sàm.vù] ebi-oya *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.ɔ̀.jà]

*[mù.sà.mvù] *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βj.ɔ̀.jà]
*[mù.sà.ᵐvù] *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲ.ɔ̀.jà]
*[mù.sàà.ᵐvù] *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̀.jà]
[mù.sââ.ᵐvù] *[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̀ɔ̀.jà]
[ɛ̀ɛ̀.βʲɔ̂ɔ̂.jà]

olu-ála *[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.á.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lw.á.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷ.á.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷá.là]
*[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷáá.là]
[ɔ̀ɔ̀.lʷââ.là]

Throughout the paper I have also transcribed each word-initial vowel as long. There are
no exceptions, as the word-initial vowel of any kind of noun class prefix seems to be long.
Instead of carrying a falling tone like most other long vowels do, this word-initial vowel
carries a low tone:

(NC1) omu-kázi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ká.zì] ‘woman’

(NC2) aba-kázi [àà.βà.ká.zì] ‘women’
(NC4) emi-cíla [ɛ̀ɛ̀.mì.cí.ɾà] ‘tails, penises’

3.3. Lexical long vowels

Aside from vowels getting elongated due to phonological processes, there are also
lexically-determined long vowels which do not appear within the vicinity of prenasalization,
palatalization or labialization, and therefore have to be underlyingly present. These almost
always carry a falling tone, which is characteristic of word-medial long vowels:

ama-suuka [àà.mà.sûû.kà] 'bedsheets'

ciila [cîî.ɾa] ‘waterfall’
ebi-koola [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.kɔ̂ɔ̂.là] 'leaves'
e-ñaaña [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ɲââ.ɲà] 'tomato'
oku-ziika [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.zîî.kà] ‘to bury' (“It is long.”)

Lexically-determined long vowels which diverge from the usual pattern of carrying falling
tone are:

e-vííví [ɛ̀ɛ̀.víí.ví] 'knee'

ama-vííví [àà.mà.víí.ví] 'knees'

There are some cases in which we see a lexically-determined long vowel with high tone
even before a prenasalized consonant. This is due to the whole vowel lengthening process
(which includes the receival of falling tone) not applying to this vowel, as it is already long
and as such maintains its original tone:

e-gúúmba [ɛ̀ɛ̀.gúú.ᵐbà] 'bone'

ama-gúúmba [àà.mà.gúú.ᵐbà] 'bones'

More than one long vowel, even when lexically-determined, can occur in a word:

oku-fuumuuka [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.fûû.mûû.kà] 'to sprint'

3.4. Vowel shortening

We have also seen that gemination shortens vowels which would otherwise turn out to be
elongated, or rather blocks this process from applying. These processes, well-known by
now, are prenasalization, palatalization and labialization. Compare entries of the possessive
pronoun paradigm in which vowel lengthening does apply / where long vowels are
underlyingly present, with entries in which this produced / underlying long vowel is shortened
by the presence of a following geminated consonant:
omu-kono [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.kɔ̀.nɔ̀] gw-aaŋge [gʷââ.ᵑgɛ̀] ‘my hand’
gw-af:e [gʷà.f:ɛ̀] ‘our hand’
gw-aamwe [gʷa.mʷɛ̀] ‘your (pl) hand’
gw-aabwe [gʷââ.bʷɛ̀] ‘their hand’

j-aaŋge [ɟââ.ᵑgɛ̀] ‘my hands’

j-af:e [ɟà.f:ɛ̀] ‘our hands’
j-aamwe [ɟa.mʷɛ̀] ‘your (pl) hand’
j-aambwe [ɟââ.bʷɛ̀] ‘their hands’

The same applies for eci-tétéii c-af:e [cà.f:ɛ̀] ‘our dress’, eli-ñó ly-af:e [lʲà.f:ɛ̀] ‘our tooth’,
eN-té z-af:e [zà.f:ɛ̀] ‘our cows’ in their respective paradigms, all other paradigms.
We also see a geminated consonant shortening the lengthening of a word-initial vowel,
which (by a rule of thumb) is otherwise always long in this position:

e-jjí [ɛ̀.ɟ:í] 'egg'

e-jjeembe [ɛ̀.ɟ:ɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] 'horn'
eN-lími [ɛ̀.n:í.mì] 'tongues' (singular olu-lími [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.lí.mì])
eN-méle [ɛ̀.m:ɛ́.ɾɛ̀] 'food'
eN-ñindo [ɛ̀.ɲ:îî.ⁿdɔ̀] 'nose(s)'

3.5. Contraction
There are also cases of contraction in Luganda, in which speakers opt not to squeeze an
epenthetic [j]-glide in between vowels ([àà.mà.ɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀ ~ àà.mà.jɛ̂ɛ̂.ᵐbɛ̀] 'horns'), but
homogenous vowels, one belonging to a noun class prefix and one belonging to the root,
merge into a long vowel, which then automatically receives falling tone:

aba-ana [àà.βââ.nà] 'children' (root is not easily extractable, labialization applies to

the singular form: omu-ana [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mʷââ.nā]
wa-ansi [wââ.ⁿsì] 'on the ground' (we know NC prefix wa- 'locatives', as in
wa-gúlu [wà.gú.ɾù] 'up(wards)' employing short /à/)

Devoicing final high vowels

omweez(i) ‘moon’
olusozi ‘mountain’
amadugav(u)
amaaz(i)
lunji ‘good’

4. Tones
Tone has been transcribed for every example provided throughout the paper. This section
will offer some notes on the tonal system in Luganda, as more data and analyses are
necessary to provide a full, detailed overview.
4.1. Low and falling tones
I treated low tone as basic, not indicating this tonal level in the personal orthography. I
believe this is common, as it is the level most frequently used by syllables in Bantu
languages and the occurrence of high tone is rather special. Only rarely do we find forms in
which solely low tones are employed, and the norm dictates that every word should have at
least one high or falling tone (whether it be a falling tone on a lexically-determined long
vowel (3.3. Lexical long vowels) or one produced due to assimilation (3.2. Vowel
lengthening)):

omu-kázi [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ká.zì] ‘woman’

omu-tíma [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.tí.mà] ‘heart’

ama-suuka [àà.mà.sûû.kà] 'bedsheets'

ebi-koola [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.kɔ̂ɔ̂.là] 'leaves'

ama-gumba [àà.mà.gûû.ᵐbà] ‘bones’

eci-konde [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.kɔ̂ɔ̂.ⁿdɛ̀] ‘fist’

4.2. High tone or stress?

The occurrence of high tone is unpredictable, unlike low tone which we treat as basic, and
falling tone always and only appears on long vowels. We can therefore say that high tone is
lexically-determined. We usually see only one high tone per word, for example in the set of
words presented in 1.1. Syllable types which showcases words of varying amounts of
syllables:

Monosyllabic forms
ñá [ɲá] 'four; 4'
zó [zɔ́] ‘your’

Disyllabic forms
sátu [sá.tù] ‘two; 2’
balí [bà.lí] ‘those (demonstrative’)

Trisyllabic forms
eli-ñó [ɛ̀ɛ̀.lì.ɲɔ́] ‘tooth’
oku-tú [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.tú] ‘ear’

Quadrisyllabic forms
olu-gálo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lù.gá.lɔ̀] ‘finger’
omu-cíla [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.cí.ɾà] ‘tail / penis’

Pentasyllabic forms
oku-káñuga [ɔ̀ɔ̀.mù.ká.ɲù.gà] ‘to throw’
oku-mumuñá [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.mù.mù.ɲá] ‘to hum’
(Near-)minimal pair high vs. falling
oku-ziika [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.zîî.kà] ‘to bury’
oku-zíka [ɔ̀ɔ̀.kù.zí.kà] ‘to overgrow, become bushy’

According to these observations, we could propose that Luganda might not be a tonal
language at all, since the usage of one and only one tonal shift per word seems to be
mandatory and standard (be it a falling tone or a high tone amidst low tones). Such a system
looks more like a stress or pitch-accent system, as these ‘stand-out’ tonal levels do not occur
more than once per word or in complex tonal structure. That is, until we look at the following
data:

mwendá [mʷɛ̂ɛ̂.ⁿdá] ‘nine; 9’

eN-péoo [ɛ̀ɛ̀.ᵐpɛ́.ɔ̂ɔ̂] ‘deer’

Here we see that high tone can occur alongside falling tone in mwendá, and all three tonal
levels can even occur alongside each other in eN-péoo. While ‘pitch’ as a feature still
upholds with falling tone being a phonological product in this case (and even had it been
lexical, there would still be only one ‘pitch’ (high tone) in the word), we also see multiple high
tones in a single word:

eci-tétéii [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cì.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî] ‘dress’

ebi-tétéii [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βì.tɛ́.tɛ́.îî] ‘dresses’

olu-búgo [ɔ̀ɔ̀.lú.βú.gɔ̀] 'bark cloth'

Granted, our data is scarce since it’s only one pair, and even more: the high tones are
adjacent to each other, to which we could analyze high tone as a spreading feature
(extremely spreading even, as in olu-búgo the high tone spreads backward into the
NC-prefix which does not normally carry high tone) or (as the devil’s advocate) pitch as
spreading. This does not bring us any further, except for:

ecí-mulí [ɛ̀ɛ̀.cí.mù.ɾí] ‘flower’

ebí-mulí [ɛ̀ɛ̀.βí.mù.ɾí] ‘flowers’

Here we see two high tones non-adjacent to each other. Then again, the first high tone
appears inside the NC-slot, which is unusual and not at all the norm. As said before, more
data and analyses are necessary to come to a full insight into the system Luganda employs,
and what kind of system it actually might be.
A1. Word list
abaana ’children’ emicíla ’tails’
abakázi ’women’ emitwé ’heads’
abasájja ’men’ emotoka ’car’
akagwa ’string’ empéo ’wind’
akamotoka ’small car’ emvílí ’hair’
akamwe- ‘subtile smile’ encíma ’monkey’
ñumweñu enními ’tongues’
alábá ’Look(sg)!’ ensingo ’neck’
amaazi ’feces’ ensolo ’animal’
amabeele ’breasts’ ensózi ’mountains’
amagumba ’bones’ enté ’cow(s)’
amaso ’eyes’ esuuka ’bedsheet’
amañó ’teeth’ ettáka ’soil, land’
amábbi ’thieves’ eviivi ’knee’
bakabáka ’kings’ eñañja ’lake’
balima ’they are digging’ eñcíma ’monkey’
balába ’they see’ eñindo ’nose(s)’
balí ’those (demonstrative)’ eñjála ’fingernail’
bonná ’all of them’ eŋaaŋa ’(type of) bird’
buganda ’Bugandans’ eŋano ’baking.flower’
báúlíla ’they hear’ eŋgálo ’finger(s)’
bútto ’cooking oil’ eŋkoko ’chicken’
citáka ’brown’ eŋkumbi ’hoe’
ebeele ’breast’ eŋkúba ’rain’
ebieñañja ’(multiple) fish’ eŋoma ’drum’
ebiokuñúa ’drinks’ ffé ’we’
ebioya ’feathers’ gwé ’you (sg)’
ebitétéii ’dresses’ inzé ’I (1SG)’
ebibála ’fruits’ jó ’yesterday’
ecikopo ’cup’ kabáka ’king’
ecibátu ’hand palm’ kúmi na bbírí ’twelve;12’
ecieñañja ’fish’ lunj ’good, handsome’
ecifúba ’chest’ mañí ’I know’
ecikunta ‘bark cloth bedsheet' mpúlíla ’I hear’
eciokuñúa ’drink’ mukága ’six; 6’
ecioya ’feather’ mulábá ’Do you (pl) see?’
ecitétéii ’dress’ mulábé ’Look (pl)!’
ecibála ’fruit’ musamvu ’seven; 7’
egumba ’bone’ naabageleka ’queen’
eliso ’eye’ na ’and (linking element)’
eliñó ’tooth’ ndábá ’I see’
embogó ’buffalo’ nsoma ’I read’
embúgo ’bark cloths’ nziika ’I bury’
embúto ’bellies’ ña ’four; 4’
ŋŋamba ’Tell me!’ oluála ’fingernail’
obutale ’markets’ olábá ’Do you (sg) see?’
obútto ’cooking oil’ olúbúgo ’bark cloth’
ojakúbba ’you (sg) will steal’ omiyéémbe ’mangoes’
okuandíka ’to write’ omuana ’child’
okuata ’to hold’ omucíla ’tail/penis’
okubbá ’to steal’ omuddo ’grass’
okubá ’to be’ omuezi ’moon’
okuebaka ’to sleep’ omufené ’jackfruit tree’
okukwata ’to hold’ omulandíla ’root’
okukáñuga ’to throw’ omulílo ’fire’
okukóla ’to do’ omuruwádde ’sick’
okuliya ’to eat’ omusogasoga ’(type of) weak tree’
okulúma ’to bite’ omusájja ’man’
okumumuñá ’to hum’ omutwé ’head’
okumwé- ‘to laugh exceedingly’ omutíma ’heart’
mwéntuka omutúba ’bark cloth tree’
okumáña ’to know’ omuvolé ’(type of) weak tree’
okuogela ’to talk’ omuyembe ’horn’
okusábá ’to beg’ omuyéémbe ’mango’
okutú ’ear’’ omúbbi ’thief’
okuwá ’to give’ omúño ’salt’
okuziika ’to bury' sátu ’three; 3’
okúba ’to beat’ sátu ’two; 2’
olualelo ’today’ sébo ’sir’
olugálo ’finger’ táno ’five; 5’
olulími ’tongue’ waansí ’on the ground’
olusózi ’mountain’ wagulu ’up’
yyé ’he/she’
A2. Noun classes

NC Number Proto-Bantu Luganda Function

1 SG *mʊ- omu- Humans, animates.

2 PL *va- aba-

3 SG *mʊ- omu- Plants, inanimates.

4 PL *mɪ- emi-

5 SG *lɪ- eli- Various nouns, including liquids and mass

6 PL *ma- ama- nouns.

7 SG *kɪ- eci- Various nouns, including diminutives,

8 PL *vi-, *di- ebi- manners, ways, and languages.

9 SG *n- eN- Animals and inanimates.

10 PL *di-n- eN-

11 SG *lʊ- olu- Abstract nouns.

(10) PL *di-n- eN-

12 *ka- aka- Diminutives.

15 *kʊ- oku- Infinitives.

16 *pa- wa- Locatives.

References

Ethnologue. (2019, March 9). Retrieved November 1, 2023, from

https://www.ethnologue.com/25/language/lug/

Maddieson, I. (2013). Chapter Consonant Inventories. WALS Online. Retrieved November 1,

2023, from https://wals.info/chapter/1

Wahome, M., & Subiyanto, A. (2023, March). Phonological Processes of the Kikuyu Dialectal

Words: A Distinctive Features Approach. 8.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369659847_Phonological_Processes_of_th

e_Kikuyu_Dialectical_Words_A_Distinctive_Features_Approach