Koalib language

Koalib
Rere
Native to	Sudan
Region	Nuba Hills
Ethnicity	Koalib, Turum, Umm Heitan
Native speakers	(44,000 cited 1984)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Talodi–Heiban Heiban Central Heiban Koalib
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kib
Glottolog	koal1240[2]

Koalib (also called Kwalib, Abri, Lgalige, Nirere, and Rere) is a Niger–Congo language in the Heiban family spoken in the Sudan.^[3] The Koalib Nuba, Turum, and Umm Heitan ethnic groups speak this language.

Capital and small at letters in Doulos SIL typeface

It is written using the Latin script,^[3] but includes some unusual letters. It shares a tailed R (Ɽ) with other Sudanese languages, and uses a letter resembling the at sign (@) in writing Arabic loanwords. The Unicode Standard includes R WITH TAIL at code points U+027D (lowercase) and U+2C64 (uppercase), but the Unicode Consortium declined to encode the at sign separately as an orthographic letter.^[4] However, SIL International maintains a registry of Private Use Area code points in which U+F247 represents LATIN SMALL LETTER AT, and U+F248 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER AT.^[5]

Footnotes

1. Koalib at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Koalib". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Ethnologue report for language code: kib, retrieved on Apr. 12, 2010.
4. Constable, Peter, and Lorna A. Priest (Oct. 12, 2009) SIL Corporate PUA Assignments 5.2a. SIL International. pp. 59-60. Retrieved on Apr. 12, 2010.
5. Charis SIL font documentation, retrieved on Apr. 12, 2010.

External links

• Rere Koalib basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database