Vili language
Bantu language spoken in Central Africa
Vili (Civili, Tshivili) is one of the Zone H Bantu languages, grouped with the Kongo clade.
The language has a few thousand native speakers along the coast between southern Gabon and northern Cabinda, most of them in the Republic of the Congo's Kouilou, Pointe-Noire and Niari departments. The Vili people (singular Muvili, plural Bavili) were the population of the 17th- to 18th-century Kingdom of Loango in the same region.
01Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k |
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | |
| prenasal vl. | ᵐp | ⁿt | ᶮt͡ʃ | ᵑk | |
| prenasal vd. | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮd͡ʒ | ᵑɡ | |
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ||
| voiced | v | z | |||
| prenasal vl. | ᶬf | ⁿs | |||
| prenasal vd. | ᶬv | ⁿz | |||
| Rhotic | r | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||
Consonants may also be labialized [ʷ] when preceding /w/.
Vowels
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Vili language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.