Burumbi

Background

Burumbi is made to sound how Anglophones think "African" languages sound. As I am rather unlearned when it comes to linguistics the result is likely to be sketchy and uninspiring to others, but it is mainly for generating names and short phrases.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	p b (p b)	t d (t d)		k g (k g)
Affricate		ts (t͡s)
Fricative		s z (s z)
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)	ny (ɲ)	ng (ŋ)
Approximant		r l (ɹ l)	y (j)	w (w)

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i /i/		u /u/
Mid		ə /ə/
Open mid	e /ɛ/
Open			a /ɑ/

In addition to these vowels the diphthong o (oʊ) is used.

Phonotactics

Syllables can take the following forms:

• V(ŋ)
• CV(ŋ)
• NSV(ŋ)
• SwV(ŋ)

where V = vowel, C = consonant, N = the nasal vowels /m n/, and S = a stop or the consonants /s z ts/. Stress always falls on the penultimate syllable except in the case of ə, in which case it falls on the following one.

Grammar

Nouns

Burumbi has four genders: three "animate" genders and one inanimate.

Genders

Gender	Form	Example	Definition
Spiritual	-ə	tsedə	ghost
Animate	-a	daya	midget
Vegetative	-i	burumbi	language
Inanimate	-o	kakumo	fort

The first gender is used for natural phenomena such as lightning and storms in addition to supernatural entities. The vegetative gender is for weakly animate nouns such as plants and things which can move in a metaphorical way, like words and ideas.