While Africa is generally a highly linguistically diverse continent, Kenya and Uganda are countries of particular diversity. While they don’t have the most languages—that honor goes to Nigeria—they do have several dozen, with Kenya boasting more than 65 and Uganda more than 70. Both countries use Swahili and English as their lingua francas at the national level, so most people in both countries learn one or both of these international tongues for educational and administrative purposes. Locally, however, minority languages like Nyole remain in vigorous use.
“Nyole” refers to two closely related but distinct languages, one spoken by about 310,000 people in Kenya and other by roughly 430,000 people in Uganda. Despite bearing the same name, the lexical similarity stands at only 61%, generally not high enough for reliable mutual intelligibility. But that’s okay—here at TranslationServices.com, we believe in the value of both Nyole languages. That’s why we have translation teams for both the Nyole of Kenya and the Nyole of Uganda.
Feel free to send us a message requesting a free quote for our Nyole translation services (either variety).
Nyole: two languages, one name
The Nyole of Kenya is spoken in the Vihiga District in the west of the country, whereas the Nyole of Uganda is spoken in the Butaleja District in the country’s east. Both fall under the Luhya grouping of languages, a cluster of related languages concentrated near the African Great Lakes. The identical name of the two languages can cause a lot of confusion, especially considering their close proximity—it would be similar to having two related languages in western Europe both called French.
The grammatical structure of the two Nyole languages is highly similar, with both featuring the classic Bantu traits that the expansive language family is so well known for. That includes a strong preference for prefixes over suffixes as well as a subject-verb-object word order, but most importantly, both Nyole languages categorize nouns into more than a dozen distinct noun classes. Knowing the class of a noun is essential to producing grammatically correct utterances, since each is associated with a prefix that is attached to the noun itself as well as any applicable verbs, adjectives, demonstratives, and possessives. Of course, this is all second nature to our translators, who are native speakers of both varieties of Nyole.
Accommodating a wide range of Nyole translation needs with our diverse team
We stand at the ready to help clients from across Kenya, Uganda, and the world access reliable, high-quality Nyole translation services whenever they wish. First, since we offer translation in both the Kenyan and Ugandan varieties of Nyole, all you have to do is specify which language you’re looking for. You can also specify a particular dialect within Kenyan Nyole or Ugandan Nyole. Since we recruit top translators from all across the Nyole-speaking regions of both Kenya and Uganda, our translators provide solid coverage of the regional variations found in both languages. We work in both directions—English to Nyole as well as Nyole to English—so you need but specify what you’re looking for.
We’ve also taken care to hire translators of both Nyole languages who boast translation experience in various domains. Academic translation? Turn to our team of academic translation experts, who are familiar with various disciplines and can navigate any technical vocabulary that may crop up. Business translation? You can trust our business translation team, who are eager to help businesses expand—either into Kenya and Uganda or across the world—by translating internal company communications and marketing collateral. Literary translation? Our literary translation specialists translate creative works of all genres to and from both Nyole languages with great care, ensuring that your unique style and tone rings through in the translated text. In short, whatever your translation needs, we can help—in either Nyole language!
Reach out and place your first Nyole translation today!
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