Learn Rwanda (Kinyarwanda)

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About Rwanda (Kinyarwanda)

Kinyarwanda, sometimes known simply as Rwanda, is spoken by more than 90% of the population of Rwanda, where it is the official language along with English, Swahili and French. Other speakers live in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kinyarwanda speakers will also understand Kirundi, spoken in Burundi. Kinyarwanda is a tonal language - a high and a low tone are used to distinguish meaning and grammatical features.

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Planet Earth
Where is it spoken?

Rwanda

People Talking
Number of speakers

12,000,000

Family Tree
Language family

Niger-Congo

Atlantic–Congo

Benue-Congo

Bantu

Fun facts — Kinyarwanda

  • The word ejo can mean tomorrow or yesterday.
  • The word umuryango can mean family, organisation or door.
  • When telling the time in Kinyarwanda, it's useful to know that the day starts at six in the morning, not at midnight. What an English speaker would call seven o'clock is one o'clock in Kinyarwanda because it's the first hour of the day. Eight o'clock is two o'clock' - the second hour - and so on.

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