ABANYALA BA KAKAMEGA: Language- Vowel Letters, vowels sound and punctuations

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The following is an exposition of vowel letters and vowel sounds found in Olunyala (K). The Olunyala (K) is a sub-dialect of Luhya language spoken by the Abanyala in Kakamega. Olunyala (K) is internationally coded as ISO 939-3 nle.

VOWEL LETTERS OF OLUNYALA (K)
Vowel letters used in words to respresent sounds in Olunyala (k) are only five. These five letters that appear in Olunyala (k) orthography are as listed here:
  1. a as in abana for children
  2. e as in esicheme for that which has been cut.
  3. i as in esikingi for a hill. The letter 'i' does not appear at start of Olunyala words unless it is atached to w or y.
  4. o as in omusolo for a game
  5. u as in omusulu for soot. The letter 'u' does not appear at start of words of Olunyala (k) unless it is preceeded by w or y.
VOWEL SOUNDS OF OLUNYALA (K)
a) Short vowel sound from the five vowel letters
  1. a as /a/ in aka
  2. e as /e/ in eke
  3. i as /i/ ekhirikhikhi
  4. o as /o/ as in owulolo for chicken mite
  5. u as /u/ as in mululu  for it is bitter tasting
Olunyala (k) does not have the vowel í and ù since they are realised as /i/ and /i/.

b) Long vowels sounds from the five vowel letters
Each of the five short vowel sound has got its long version
  1. /a:/ for example we have olwala /olwala/ for finger then olwala /olwa:la/ for you are sick, amala /amala/, /ama:la/ for interstines and smearing respectively.
  2. /e:/ for example we have amabere /amabere/ for sorghum and amabere /amabe:re/ for milk, embere /eᵐbere/, /eᵐbe:re/ for breasts and that which is young respectively.
  3. /i:/ for example we have sima /sima/ for extinguish fire and esima /esi:ma/ for I love respectively.
  4. /o:/ for example we have mola /mola/ for crowl and mola /mo:la/ for smear with oil, loba /loβɑˌ/; /lo:βɑ/ for refuse and ask for a debt respectively.
  5. /u:/ for example we have kula /kula/ for buy and kula /ku:la/ for roof, embula /eᵐbula/; /eᵐbu:lɑ/ for wax and I am threshing respectively
c) Vowels based on tone
All the five vowels have two dinctinct vowel sounds based on tone.
1. [à], [è], [ì], [ò], [ù]
enda /èndà/ louse
enda /ándá/ stomach.
2. [á] [é] [í] [ó] [ú]





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