Rendille language

Rendille
Rendille
Afi Renꞌdille
Native to	Kenya
Region	Eastern Province
Ethnicity	Rendille
Native speakers	96,000 (2019 census)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Cushitic Lowland East Rendille–Boni Rendille; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rel
Glottolog	rend1243

Rendille (also known as Rendile, Randile) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch.

The Ariaal sub-group of the Rendille, who are of mixed Nilotic and Cushitic descent, speak the Nilo-Saharan Samburu language of the Samburu Nilotes, near whom they live.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ alveolar	Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪		ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless		t̪		tɕ	k	(q)		ʔ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	b	d̪	ɖ	dʑ	g
Fricative		f	s			x		ħ ~ ʕ	h
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Glide		w			j

/tɕ/ can be heard as [ɕ] by some speakers.
Some speakers always pronounce /x/ as a uvular stop [q].
[ʕ] can be heard as a free variant of /ħ/, or when /ħ/ is heard in intervocalic position.
Voiced sounds become voiceless when in word-final position.
/b/ can be pronounced as [p] when preceding /ħ/, or as a fricative [β] in intervocalic position.
/r/ can also freely be devoiced as [r̥] in word-initial position, and is always heard as devoiced in word-final position.
/d̪/ can freely be heard as an affricate [d̪ð], and can also be heard as a fricative [ð] in intervocalic position.
/x/ can also be heard as an affricate [qχ] when following nasal sounds.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Open		a aː

Vowels /i, u, e, o/ are commonly heard as lax [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].

Alphabet

The Rendille alphabet has 26 letters:

Rendille alphabet
Letter	A	B	Ch	D	Dh	E	F	G	H	H'	I	J	K
Letter	a	b	ch	d	dh	e	f	g	h	h'	i	j	k
Phoneme	/a/	/b/	/tʃ/	/ɖ/	/d̪/	/e/	/f/	/g/	/ħ/	/h/	/i/	/ʤ/	/k/
Letter	Kh	L	M	N	Ng'	Ny	O	R	S	T	U	W	Y
Letter	kh	l	m	n	ng'	ny	o	r	s	t	u	w	y
Phoneme	/x/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/ŋ/	/ɲ/	/ɔ/	/r/	/s/	/t/	/u/	/w/	/j/

Long vowels are written doubled. Tone is phonemic, and high tone can be written as an acute accent ( ́), while low tone is not marked.

References

1 2 Rendille at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
1 2 Ethnologue - Rendille
↑ Parris, Ronald G. (1994). Rendille. Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 13. ISBN 0823917630.
1 2 Rhonda L. Hartell, ed. (1993). "The Alphabets of Africa" (PDF). SIL Global. Dakar: UNESCO and Summer Institute of Linguistics. p. 187. Retrieved 2026-03-30.

Harold C. Fleming, "Baiso and Rendille: Somali Outliers", Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, 20 (1964), pp. 35–96.
Antoinette Oomen. 1981. "Gender and Plurality in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:35-75.
Steve Pillinger & Letiwa Galboran. 1999. A Rendille Dictionary, Including a Grammatical Outline and an English-Rendille Index. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 14. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Heine, Bernd. 1976. Notes on the Rendille Language. In Afrika und Übersee LIX. 176-223
Günther Schlee. 1978. Sprachliche Studien zum Rendille. Hamburger Philologische Studien 46. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
Ronald J. Sim. 1981. "Morphophonemics of the Verb in Rendille," Afroasiatic Linguistics 8:1-33.

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[e25-1] 1 2 Rendille at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[Ethnren-2] 1 2 Ethnologue - Rendille

[Parris-3] Parris, Ronald G. (1994). Rendille. Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 13. ISBN 0823917630.

[Hartell-4] 1 2 Rhonda L. Hartell, ed. (1993). "The Alphabets of Africa" (PDF). SIL Global. Dakar: UNESCO and Summer Institute of Linguistics. p. 187. Retrieved 2026-03-30.

Authority control databases
International	GND
National	United States France BnF data Israel
Other	Yale LUX