Bari language

Bari
Barian
Karo, Kutuk
RegionSouth Sudan
EthnicityKaro peoples
Native speakers
L1: 770,000 (2017)[1]
L2: 180,000 (2013)[1]
Dialects
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3bfa
Glottologbari1283  Barian
bari1284  Bari

Bari is the Nilotic language of the Karo people, spoken over large areas of Central Equatoria state in South Sudan, across the northwest corner of Uganda, and into the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bari is spoken by several distinct tribes: the Bari people themselves, the Pojulu, Kakwa, Nyangwara, Mundari, and Kuku. Each has its own dialect. The language is therefore sometimes called Karo or Kutuk ('mother tongue') rather than Bari.

Bari is a tone language. It has vowel harmony, subject–verb–object word order, and agglutinative verbal morphology with some suppletion. A very competent dictionary and grammar were published in the 1930s, but are very difficult to find today. More recently, a dissertation has been published on Bari tonal phonology, and another dissertation on Bari syntax is available.

  1. ^ a b Bari at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon