Not to be confused with Iroquois language.
Iraqw is a Cushitic

Cushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...

 language spoken in Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

 in the Arusha

Arusha Region

Arusha is one of Tanzania's 26 administrative regions. The regional capital and largest city is Arusha. Other towns include Monduli, just west of Arusha, Longido and Loliondo to the north, Mto Wa Mbu and Karatu to the west and Usa River to the east...

 and Manyara Region

Manyara Region

Manyara is one of the 26 Regions of Tanzania. Babati serves as the Region's capital. In its northern part is Lake Manyara. It is bordered to the north by the Arusha Region, to the northeast by the Kilimanjaro Region, to the east by the Tanga Region, to the south by the Dodoma Region, to the...

s. It is expanding in numbers, as the Iraqw people absorb neighboring ethnic groups. The language has a large number of Datooga

Datooga language

The Datooga language is a Nilotic language, or actually a dialect cluster, of the Southern group. It is spoken by the Datooga people of the Great Rift Valley of Tanzania....

 loanwords, especially in poetic language. The Gorowa language

Gorowa language

Gorowa is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Dodoma and Manyara Regions.- References :*...

 to the south shares numerous similarities and is sometimes considered a dialect.

Vowels

Whiteley (1958) lists the following vowel phonemes for Iraqw. All of the vowels except /ə/ occur in both short and long versions:

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i iː		u uː
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e eː	ə	o oː
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...		a aː

Consonants

Whiteley (1958) lists the following consonants.

Iraqw consonant phonemes

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...		Labio dental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...		Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...		Palato alveolar Palato-alveolar consonant In phonetics, palato-alveolar consonants are postalveolar consonants, nearly always sibilants, that are weakly palatalized with a domed tongue...		Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...		Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....		Uvular Uvular-epiglottal consonant A uvular–epiglottal consonant is a doubly articulated consonant pronounced by making a simultaneous uvular consonant and epiglottal consonant. An example is the Somali "uvular" plosive , which is actually a voiceless uvular–epiglottal plosive , as in 'to emit smoke'....		Pharyn geal Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...		Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m						n						ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	p	b			t	d					k	ɡ	q		ʕ ⟨/⟩		ʔ ⟨'⟩
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...					ts		tʃ ⟨ch⟩
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...			f		s	ɬ ⟨sl⟩	ʃ ⟨sh⟩				x				ħ ⟨hh⟩		h
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....					r
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...					l				j ⟨y⟩		w

In the popular orthography for Iraqw used in Lutheran and Catholic materials, the sound ɬ is spelled ⟨sl⟩ and ʕ is spelled ⟨/⟩ (Mous 1993:16).

Gender

Nouns in Iraqw have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The gender of a noun can be deduced from the type of agreement that it triggers on other elements in the sentence, but the agreement system is unusual, and obeys the following principle (Mous 1993:41):

• Masculine nouns require the masculine form of the verb
• Feminine nouns require the feminine form of the verb
• Neuter nouns require the plural form of the verb

The masculine, feminine, and plural forms of the verb are identified by the form the verb takes when the subject is pronoun which is a.) a third person masculine singular ('he'), b.) a third person feminine singular ('she'), or c.) a third person plural ('they').

Masculine verb forms
Daaqay	i	giilín		i	giilín
boys(MASC)	S.3	fight:3.SG.M		S.3	fight:3.SG.M
'The boys are fighting'				'He is fighting'

Feminine verb forms
Hhayse	i	harweeriiríin		i	harweeriiríin
tails(FEM)	S.3	make:circles:3.SG.F		S.3	make:circles:3.SG.F
'The tails are making circles'				'She is making circles'

Neuter verb forms
Hhayso	i	harweeriiríná'		i	harweeriiríná'
tail(NEUTER)	S.3	make:circles:3.SG.PL		S.3	make:circles:3.SG.PL
'The tail is making circles'				'They are making circles'

There are several unusual things that are worth noting. One is that 'tail' is neuter in the singular and feminine in the plural; despite this, the plural verb form is used for both 'tail', since it is neuter, and neuters use the plural verb form. Another is that the verbs do not agree with their subjects in number, so the masculine plural daaqay 'boys' takes the masculine form of the verb, not the neuter form of the verb.

Number

Nouns typically have separate singular and plural forms, but there are a large number of distinct plural suffixes. Mous (1993:44) reports that there are fourteen different plural suffixes. The lexical entry for a noun must specify the particular plural suffix it takes.

The gender of a plural noun is usually different than the gender of the corresponding singular. Compare the following singular and plural nouns, with their genders:

singular	singular gender	plural	plural gender	meaning
awu	m	awe	f	bull
bila'	m	bil'aawe	f	cliff
nyaqot	m	nyaqootma'	f	colobus monkey
hhampa	m	hhampeeri	n	wing
tlanka	f	tlankadu	n	bridge
lama	f	lameemo	n	lie
hlanú	m	hlaneemo	n	python
xweera	n	xweer(a)du	n	night

While it is not possible to predict the gender of a noun or which plural suffix it will take, the form of the plural suffix determines the gender of the plural noun. So, for example, all plural nouns with the /-eemo/ suffix are neuter (Mous 1993:58).

External links

• Iraqw language topical vocabulary list (from the World Loanword Database)