Kirundi
/kiˈrun.di/noun
A Bantu language spoken mainly in Burundi and neighboring regions.
Did you know?Kirundi belongs to the Bantu language family, and its class-prefix system is part of an ancient grammatical architecture shared across hundreds of African languages.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Bantu
PB
*ɪ̀-rùndí
“An ancestral Bantu base underlying the ethnonym/place-name sense”
Precolonial Burundi
Kirundi
ki-rùndi
“The language of the Rundi people”
19th Century
German/French
Kirundi
“Recorded by European linguists and administrators as the local language of Burundi”
Modern English
English
Kirundi
“The name used in English for the Bantu language of Burundi”
Explore more surprising origins