Lango

Eastern Sudanic family · Western Nilotic branch · Africa

Lango is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

On Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection, WALS codes Lango as “TAM+agreement+construct”, a value held by 1 of the 160 languages coded.

On Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes, WALS codes Lango as “Tense-aspect tone”, a value held by 13 of the 1,131 languages coded, Kisi and Doyayo among them.

On Occurrence of Nominal Plurality, 6 of 7 other Eastern Sudanic languages coded have the value “Plural in all nouns, always obligatory”; Lango has “Plural only in human nouns, obligatory”.

The order Lango uses in 8 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Lango with Luo or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Lango, rarest first.

Fusion of Selected Inflectional FormativesExclusively tonal3 of 165
Ordinal NumeralsFirst, two, three12 of 321
Indefinite ArticlesIndefinite affix on noun24 of 534
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person MarkingZero realization of some third person singular forms21 of 380
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate NegationNegative existential construction12 of 206
Definite ArticlesNo definite article but indefinite article45 of 620
Productivity of the Antipassive Constructionpartially productive14 of 186
Absence of Common ConsonantsNo fricatives48 of 567

Inside the Eastern Sudanic family

Lango matches the most frequent Eastern Sudanic value on 45 of the 79 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (57%). Among the 11 Eastern Sudanic languages profiled here, that rate ranks ninth from the top.

Where Lango breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Lango	Most relatives
The Associative Plural	Associative plural absent	Special bound associative plural marker (4 of 5)

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Lango; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Luo Eastern Sudanic37 of 46
Sahu North Halmaheran30 of 40
Muna Austronesian31 of 43
West Makian North Halmaheran31 of 43
Bagirmi Central Sudanic67 of 106

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Lango for 126 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 113 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Lango shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 17

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Low	58 of 564
Fixed Stress Locations	Initial: stress is on the first syllable	92 of 502
Consonant Inventories	Moderately small	122 of 563
Tone	Simple tone system	132 of 527
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels present	64 of 244
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, also initially	147 of 469
Vowel Quality Inventories	Large vowel inventory (7-14)	184 of 564
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in plosives alone	189 of 567
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	No weight, or weight factor unknown	261 of 500
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	281 of 500
Syllable Structure	Moderately complex syllable structure	274 of 486
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals	388 of 567
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants	409 of 567
Presence of Uncommon Consonants	None	449 of 567
Uvular Consonants	No uvulars	470 of 567
Front Rounded Vowels	None	525 of 562

Word structure 10

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Reduplication	No productive reduplication	55 of 368
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Approximately equal amounts of suffixing and prefixing	147 of 969
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology	Consistently head-marking	47 of 236
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	6-7 categories per word	31 of 145
Locus of Marking in the Clause	P is head-marked	71 of 236
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is syncretic	60 of 198
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Possessor is head-marked	78 of 236
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives	No case	75 of 162
Case Syncretism	Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal	123 of 198
Zero Marking of A and P Arguments	Non-zero marking	219 of 235

Nouns and pronouns 21

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number affixes	25 of 261
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Mixed	33 of 322
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Different stems	37 of 201
Person Marking on Adpositions	Person marking for pronouns only	83 of 378
Indefinite Pronouns	Generic-noun-based indefinites	85 of 326
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	No morphological case-marking	81 of 261
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers	Formally different	40 of 116
Position of Case Affixes	Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics	379 of 1,031
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Three-way contrast	88 of 234
Number of Cases	No morphological case-marking	100 of 261
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	79 of 200
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives	Unrelated	100 of 225
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	513 of 1,066
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
Number of Genders	None	145 of 257
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	No gender system	145 of 257
Systems of Gender Assignment	No gender system	145 of 257
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	120 of 200
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are absent	260 of 400
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction	136 of 207
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	No gender distinctions	254 of 378

Noun phrases 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses	Weakly differentiated	15 of 138
Adjectives without Nouns	Marked by preceding word	18 of 124
Action Nominal Constructions	Possessive-Accusative	29 of 168
Possessive Classification	Two classes	94 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are different	125 of 301
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 16

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
The Prohibitive	Special imperative + special negative	146 of 496
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for either possibility or necessity	66 of 207
Epistemic Possibility	Other	91 of 240
The Past Tense	No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction	88 of 222
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Coding of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect	Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction	101 of 222
The Future Tense	No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	112 of 222
The Perfect	No perfect	114 of 222
The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	292 of 548
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system	201 of 375
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	No suppletion in tense or aspect	123 of 193
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	158 of 234
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material)	153 of 193
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-genitive (NGen)	468 of 1,249
Position of Polar Question Particles	No question particle	355 of 884
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb	Verb-object-oblique (VOX)	210 of 500
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	511 of 1,184
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)	562 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral follows noun (NNum)	608 of 1,154
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)	879 of 1,367
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial	615 of 902
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject precedes verb (SV)	1,192 of 1,496

Simple clauses 19

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Antipassive Constructions	Antipassive with patient-like argument left implicit	18 of 194
Other Roles of Applied Objects	Locative	18 of 183
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Mixed	40 of 378
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Both sequential type and purposive type	15 of 118
Polar Questions	Interrogative intonation only	173 of 955
Predicative Possession	Conjunctional Possessive	59 of 240
Reciprocal Constructions	Identical to reflexive	44 of 175
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A precedes P	96 of 379
Applicative Constructions	Benefactive and other; both bases	49 of 183
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym	114 of 297
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	Non-assignable (no asymmetry found)	114 of 297
Negative Morphemes	Negative particle	502 of 1,157
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Neutral	79 of 172
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of both the A and P arguments	193 of 378
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Neutral	98 of 190
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Passive Constructions	There is no passive construction	211 of 373
Expression of Pronominal Subjects	Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs	437 of 711
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310

Complex sentences 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Relativization on Obliques	Pronoun-Retention Strategy	20 of 112
'When' Clauses	Balanced	84 of 174
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283
Reason Clauses	Balanced	90 of 169
Purpose Clauses	Deranked	102 of 170
Relativization on Subjects	Gap	125 of 166
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 5

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196
M in Second Person Singular	No m in second person singular	152 of 230
M in First Person Singular	No m in first person singular	177 of 230
N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	194 of 230
M-T Pronouns	No M-T pronouns	200 of 230