Kanuri

Kanuri

Kanuri is a collection of dialects belonging to the Nilo-Saharan
language family. There are about 4 million Kanuri speakers in Nigeria,
Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and also by some people in Libya and Sudan.

Kanuri is used as a local lingua franca along with Hausa and Arabic.
It was written with a version of the Arabic alphabet from about the 17th
century, and is currently written with the Latin alphabet. A standardised
spelling system based on the Maiduguri dialect and using the Latin alphabet,
the Standard Kanuri Orthography, was developed during the 1970s and
implemented in 1975.

Kanuri is used as a medium of instruction in primary schools in Nigeria and
Niger, and it is possible to study Kanuri up to PhD level.

Kanuri alphabet

Kanuri alphabet

Sample text

Adamgana woso kambe katambo ye daraja-a hakkiwa-ason kalkalye.
Hankal-a nazaru-asoro kəzəpkə ye suro hal
nəmharamiben kamazasoga letaiyin ye.

Links

Information about the Kanuri language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanuri_language
http://www.kanuri.net/kanuri_studies2.php?aID=25
http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/Kanuri_root.html

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