Shubi language

Not to be confused with Subi language.

Shubi
Region	Kagera Region in Tanzania
Ethnicity	Shubi people
Native speakers	(153,000 cited 1987)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Great Lakes Bantu Ruanda-Rundi Hangaza-Shubi Shubi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	suj
Glottolog	shub1238
Guthrie code	JD.64[2]

Shubi is a Bantu language spoken by the Shubi people in north-western Tanzania. It may use labiodental plosives /p̪/, /b̪/ (sometimes written ȹ, ȸ) as phonemes, rather than as allophones of /p, b/. Peter Ladefoged wrote:

We have heard labiodental stops made by a Shubi speaker whose teeth were sufficiently close together to allow him to make an airtight labiodental closure. For this speaker this sound was clearly in contrast with a bilabial stop; but we suspect that the majority of Shubi speakers make the contrast one of bilabial stop versus labial-labiodental affricate (i.e. bilabial stop closure followed by a labiodental fricative), rather than bilabial versus labiodental stop.^[3]

References

1. Shubi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. LINGUIST List 5.219: Labiodental nasals

External links

• Short article on Shubi proverbs