Lango Alphabet

Lango is the language of the Langi people of the Lango sub-region in northern-central Uganda. Its speakers call it Leb Lango, often written as one word, Leblango (leb means tongue or language). It is written in the Latin alphabet with 25 letters in this order: A B C D E Ë G I Ï J K L M N NY Ŋ O Ö P R T U Ü W Y. Twenty-four are single characters and one, ny, is a pair of letters that counts as one.

The letters f, h, q, s, v, x and z are left out because the native words do not need them; borrowed words are written with the letters Lango does have. Several letters do a different job from English: c is always the ch of church, j the j of jam, g is always hard as in go, and r is tapped or rolled. Ny is a single sound, the ny of canyon, like Spanish ñ.

The distinctive consonant letter is ŋ, called eng or "ng with a tail". It is the sound at the end of English sing, but in Lango, as in its neighbours, it can also begin a word, which is why a separate letter is useful. Unicode encodes it as U+014B for small ŋ and U+014A for capital Ŋ, in the Latin Extended-A block.

Tone and vowel marks in Lango spelling

Lango is a tonal language: the pitch of a syllable can tell two words apart. Everyday spelling generally does not mark tone, but its standard alphabet includes the diaeresis vowels ë, ï, ö and ü; readers rely on context for tone, while tone marks can appear in linguistic and teaching materials.

Lango has vowel harmony, and its standard alphabet distinguishes vowel qualities with four additional letters: ë, ï, ö and ü, alongside a e i o u. These diaeresis letters are part of ordinary spelling, as in Lëblaŋo, not just marks found in linguistic works; ŋ is another distinctive letter.

How to type ŋ and Ŋ on a keyboard, iPhone or Android

The quickest way is to copy ŋ and Ŋ from this page. In Microsoft Word on Windows, type 014B and press Alt+X for ŋ, or 014A and Alt+X for Ŋ. On a Mac, add the Unicode Hex Input source in Keyboard settings, hold Option and type 014B. In HTML, write ŋ and Ŋ, or the numeric forms ŋ and Ŋ.

Many phone keyboards do not offer ŋ on a long-press of n, so set up a text replacement once: on an iPhone in Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement, on Android in your keyboard's personal dictionary or shortcuts. Paste ŋ as the phrase and choose a short trigger such as ngg. If ŋ is unavailable, many writers type ng instead, which readers understand, but ŋ is the alphabet letter.

Watch the look-alikes: ŋ is not Greek η (eta), and not ɲ (n with a left hook), which some linguists use for the ny sound. Pasting the wrong one breaks searching and sorting.

Where Lango is spoken in Uganda

Lango is spoken in the Lango sub-region, the area around Lira city and the districts of Apac, Oyam, Kole, Dokolo, Alebtong, Otuke, Amolatar and Kwania, between Lake Kyoga to the south and Acholi country to the north. Unicode's CLDR estimates about 1.9 million speakers, all of them counted in Uganda.

It belongs to the Luo branch of the Nilotic languages. Its closest relative is Kumam; Acholi and Alur are other close Luo relatives, and Lango and Acholi speakers largely understand each other; Acholi uses Latin letters and the digraphs ny and ng. A more distant cousin is Dholuo in Kenya, which writes the ŋ sound as ng'. Many Lango speakers also use English, Uganda's official language, and the Uganda collection has the country's flag and emoji.