Kintu

Kintu is a Universal Language, a region auxiliary language for the Bantusphere, in southern Africa.

Kintu [ki.ntu]
Timeline/Universe	Universal Languages
Period	Future Utopia
Spoken in	Bantusphere
Total speakers	450 million
Writing system	Ditema tsa Dinoko
Classification	Proto-Bantu
Typology
Basic word order	SVO
Morphology	Agglutinative
Alignment	N-A
Credits
Created by	User:Aquatiki

Anthropology

Pan-Bantu flag

While Swahili has, in many ways, united northeastern Africa, a true pan-Bantu language is yet needed. Approximately 450 million people would be connected by this language, called Kintu. This includes the languages of Swahili, Shona, Zulu, Xhosa, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Lingala, Gikuyu, Nyanja, Tshiluba, and many more.

Pre-nasalized stops Eight noun classes Seven vowels Five tenses and three aspects Agglutinative morphology Heavily prefixing Two tones (hence only one marked) We propose a new script, Ditema tsa Dinoko, which has yet to be adopted by Unicode.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Post.	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plain Obstruent	voiced	b	d	dʒ	g
	unvoiced	p	t	tʃ	k	(ʔ)
Prenasalized	voiced	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮdʒ	ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiced	v	z (ð)
	unvoiced	f	s	(ts)	ʃ	h
Approximant			r l	j	w

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
High-Mid	e	o
Low-Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Low	a

low tone (unmarked) and high (´)

Morphology

Noun Classes

#	Name	Sound	Example	Notes
1	Singular Human	m(u)-	muntu "person"
2	Plural Human	ba-	bantu "people"
3	Singular Plant	mu-	muse "tree"
4	Plural Plant	mi-	mise "trees"
7	Singular Object	ki-	kitu "thing"	Assimilated old class 5 too
8	Plural Object	bi-	bitu "things"	Assimiliated old class 6 too
9	Animal Singular	n(i)-	nyama "animal"
10	Animal Plural	ni-	niyama "animals"
14	Abstract/Collective	bu-	bulo mi "life"	Assimilated old class 11
15	Infinitives	ku-	kulonda "to follow"
17	Locatives	ku-	kunzila "on the road"	Assimilated old 16 and 18

Old Proto-Bantu classes 12 and 13 (diminutives and ...) differ too much across the region to keep. Classes over 17 are disputed.

Verbs

Tense	Marker	Example
Present	Ø	londa = follows/is following
Past (Recent)	na-	nalonda = just followed
Past (Remote)	ka-	kalonda = followed (long ago)
Future (Near)	ta-	talonda = will soon follow
Future (Remote)	ko-	kolonda = will follow (distant future)

Aspect

• Perfective (completed) || me-
• Progressive (Ongoing Action): ki- → kilonda = is following
• Habitual/Repeated Action: sa- → salonda = follows habitually
• Negative Marker: te (suffix) → londa-te = does not follow
• Subjunctive/Imperative: tu- → tulonda = let (someone) follow

Lexicography

See also: Kintu/Swadesh

Universal Languages
AFRICA	SEDES (Horn of Africa), Middle Semitic (Semitic languages), Kintu (Bantu languages), Guosa (West Africa)
CENTRAL ASIA	Jalpi (Turkic languages), Zens (Iranian languages), Dravindian (Dravidian languages), Neo-Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan languages)
EUROPE	Interlingua (Romance languages), Folksprak (Germanic languages), Interslavic Slavic languages, Balkan (Balkans)
FAR EAST	Dan'a'yo (CJKV), MSEAL (Mainland Southeast Asia), Indo-Malay (Maritime Southeast Asia)