About Rukiga

Rukiga is a western lacustrine Bantu language mainly spoken in south/western Uganda. It is part of the larger Runyakitara language group and, in particular, closely related to Runyankore. More generally it is part of the Niger-Congo linguistic family. Rukiga and Runyankore are often considered as sister languages, or even one language, and are connected together via hyphens, i.e. “Rukiga-Runyankore” or “Runyankore-Rukiga”.  Rukiga has around 6-7 million speakers in contemporary times, and is mostly spoken in the context of home life, though there are also radio, newspapers, music, literature, and television stations in Rukiga. It has around 17-20 noun classes in total, though a smaller number of these classes are most common.

The ethnologue entry can be found here.