1. Family: Nilo-Saharan
  2. Subfamily: Eastern Sudanic
  3. Genus: Nilotic

Lango

WALS coordinates: 2° 10′ N, 33° E

spoken in Uganda

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Lango
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Simple tone system
      Fixed Stress Locations Initial
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Absence of Common Consonants No fricatives
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively tonal
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
      Reduplication No productive reduplication
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders None
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
      Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
      The Associative Plural No associative plural
      Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite affix
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Mixed
      Ordinal Numerals First, two, three
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification Two classes
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Weakly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Marked by preceding word
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect No perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect tone
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Other
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in some 3sg forms
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Mixed
      Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions Implicit patient
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Negative existential construction
      Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Relativization on Obliques Pronoun-retention
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns