Languages Similar To Luganda And Inuktitut- 3 Top Ones

Languages similar to Luganda and Inuktitut are new languages to many learners. They have their worth in the eyes of language lovers.

Here, you’ll find a detailed description of languages similar to Luganda and Inuktitut. Learning these languages would be helpful for you.

Language Similar To Luganda

In the African Great Lakes, this is a Bantu language. It is one of Uganda’s most widely spoken languages. It has about 10 million Baganda. 

This language is tonal with subject-verb-object word order. It also has a nominative-accusative alignment. Also, it is exceptionally agglutinating. According to tradition, it has three tones: high, falling, and low.

Luganda does not have rising tones, even on long vowels. Below is one of the languages similar to Luganda:

1. Swahili:

It was declared the official language of the government in 1912. Due to protests from other ethnic groups, Luganda was also replaced by Swahili in 1928.  Moreover, Swahili people believed, the speakers of Luganda got preferential treatment. 

Also, it is one of the East African Community’s countries’ two official languages. The other being is English. 

Phonology:

Swahili has a long history of adopting vocabulary from other languages. Especially administrative terms from Arabic, but also words from Portuguese, Hindi, and German.

The vowel phonemes in standard Swahili are /u/, /ɑ/, /i/, /ɔ/and /ɛ/. Vowels are also never diminished, according to Ellen Contini-Morava, regardless of stress. However, according to Edgar Polomé:

“The pronunciation of these five phonemes might vary. They are only pronounced in stressed syllables”

Long Swahili vowels are represented as two vowels in Swahili. Example: kondoo, meaning “sheep”. That is owing to a historical process in which it dropped L between a word’s second.

They initially pronounced the final vowel (e.g. kondoo “sheep“) as kondolo. These long vowels, however, are not considered phonemic. 

Grammatical Structure:

Nouns in Swahili have classes. These are also essentially equivalent to genders in other languages. Prefixes in Swahili denote groupings of related objects: 

– wa– denotes a group of humans (watoto ‘children‘) 

– m– denotes a single human being (mtoto ‘child‘)

Moreover, it should agree with Swahili adjectives, pronouns, and even verbs. That is something that all Bantu languages have in common. Thus it is one of the languages similar to Luganda.

Languages Similar To Inuktitut

Inuktitut is a North American Indigenous language spoken in the Canadian Arctic. According to the 2016 census, there were 39,770 speakers, with 65 percent of them living in Nunavut.

Inuktitut is also a branch of the Inuit family that stretches from Alaska to Greenland. Here are some languages similar to Inuktitut:

1. Aleut Language:

Aleut, also known as Unangan, is a closely related language to Inuktitut. Both languages belong to the Eskimo-Aleut linguistic family. 

They are also considerably distinct. Also, an Inuktitut dialect speaker would be unable to understand a Unangan dialect.

Phonology:

Preaspiration was on voiceless approximants. It also includes devoiced nasals. Approximants’ preaspiration creates little friction. That fiction is heard as a breathy voice. 

Devoiced nasals’ preaspiration begins with a voiceless airstream via the nose. Also may end with a voiced airstream before a vowel.

The presence of tense suffixes distinguishes verbs from nouns morphologically. Verb stems, like noun stems, can finish in a short vowel or consonant. 

Many consonant-ending stems also had auxiliary vowels. Those had become part of the stem. Negation can be suffixal, before or after the mood/tense suffix.

2. Yupik Languages- One Of The Languages Similar To Inuktitut:

Yupik peoples in western and south-central Alaska speak the Yupik language.

Speakers of one of the Yupik may grasp the basic idea of a discussion from speakers of another. It is with those speakers that are not mutually intelligible.

Morphology:

Like other Eskimo–Aleut languages, the Yupik languages are affixally polysynthetic. That means they are a form of agglutinative language. 

Furthermore, five languages make up Yupik. It is a dialectal form that means “real person.” Yupik languages “synthesize” a single root to construct long words with sentence-like meanings. It is at the beginning of each word.

Lexicon:

Yupik has lexical roots and suffixes that combine to produce meanings. Many free morphemes would also express these meanings in other languages.

The three vowels a, u, and i are also in all languages. Consonants also governed their pronunciation. It also follows or precedes them.

Nouns And Pronouns:

Yupik nouns and pronouns contain five and six adverbial cases. They are to describe relationships like:

– In 

– To

– From

– Along

– With

– Like

Facts About Yupik Languages:

Inupik and Yupik are the two major dialect groups of the Inuit language. The North American Arctic traditionally speaks this language. 

Final Thoughts:

Learning new languages is an amazing method to set oneself apart from the crowd. The globe grows increasingly globalized, firms’ demand for language speakers. 

Furthermore, it is growing as they expand their operations into new regions. The ability to understand international literature may help us appreciate the world.

Having skills in more than one language also opens up a world of entertainment. Moreover, Luganda and Inuktitut are two interesting languages. 

People do not know much about them. Understanding them is also beneficial. Languages similar to them will undoubtedly give you an edge in the language world.