Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 7, 2026

Shubi language

Shubi is a Bantu language spoken by the Shubi people in north-western Tanzania. It may use labiodental plosives, as phonemes, rather than as allophones of. Peter Ladefoged wrote:We have heard labiodental stops made by a Shubi speaker whose teeth were sufficiently close together to allow him to make an airtight labiodental closure. For this speaker this sound was clearly in contrast with a bilabial stop; but we suspect that the majority of Shubi speakers make the contrast one of bilabial stop versus labial-labiodental affricate, rather than bilabial versus labiodental stop.

Last revised
Jun 7, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
155 w
Citations
3
Source
Shubi
RegionKagera Region in Tanzania
EthnicityShubi people
Native speakers
(153,000 cited 1987)1
Language codes
ISO 639-3suj
Glottologshub1238
JD.642

Shubi is a Bantu language spoken by the Shubi people in north-western Tanzania. It may use labiodental plosives //, // (sometimes written ȹ, ȸ) as phonemes, rather than as allophones of /p, b/. Peter Ladefoged wrote:

We have heard labiodental stops made by a Shubi speaker whose teeth were sufficiently close together to allow him to make an airtight labiodental closure. For this speaker this sound was clearly in contrast with a bilabial stop; but we suspect that the majority of Shubi speakers make the contrast one of bilabial stop versus labial-labiodental affricate (i.e. bilabial stop closure followed by a labiodental fricative), rather than bilabial versus labiodental stop.3
References

References

  1. Shubi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  3. LINGUIST List 5.219: Labiodental nasals
External links