Kinyarwanda

Kinyarwanda
Rwandan
Ikinyarwanda
Native to	Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, DR Congo, Tanzania
Ethnicity	Banyarwanda
Native speakers	15 million (2014–2022)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Great Lakes Bantu Rwanda-Rundi Kinyarwanda
Dialects	Bufumbwa Ikinyabwishya Igikiga Ikinyamurenge Ikirera Urufumbira Urutwatwa
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Rwanda
Language codes
ISO 639-1	rw
ISO 639-2	kin
ISO 639-3	kin
Glottolog	kiny1244
Guthrie code	JD.61[2]
Linguasphere	99-AUS-df
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Kinyarwanda,^[3] Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda,^[4] is a Bantu language and the national language of Rwanda.^[5] It is a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is also spoken in Burundi and adjacent parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda (where there is a dialect known as Rufumbira or Urufumbira) and Tanzania. Kinyarwanda is universal among the native population of Rwanda and is mutually intelligible with Kirundi, the national language of neighbouring Burundi.^[6] Kinyabwishya and Kinyamulenge are mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of neighbouring DR Congo.

In 2010, the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC)^[7] was established to help promote and sustain Kinyarwanda. The organization attempted an orthographic reform in 2014, but it was met with pushback due to their perceived top-down and political nature, among other reasons.^[8]

In 2019, an individual researcher named Kwizera Mugisha developed a new alphabet, the Umwero alphabet, to protect Kinyarwanda by preserving its linguistic heritage and promoting its uniqueness worldwide. This initiative aims to decolonize the alphabet and typography of the language. The Umwero alphabet is accessible via a virtual keyboard ([1]) and is featured on the Endangered Alphabets Atlas ([2]). Kwizera Mugisha asserts that every culture is protected by its language, and every language is safeguarded by its own writing system.