Nyoro belongs to the Nyoro-Ganda group of Bantu (Guthrie E11) and is spoken in Uganda, south and southeast of Lake ?, as well as in the Haut-Zaïre region of Zaire. Technically, the language name appears with a prefix as Runyoro or ruNyoro.
UBS (1982) notes 400,000 speakers, Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) 180,000. Ladefoged, Glick, and Criper (1972), using 1959 census material, state that Nyoro speakers represent 6.2 percent of Uganda's population, or about 590,000 people. However, Grimes (1996, citing the 1991 Ugandan census) gives a figure of 495,443 Nyoro speakers.
Nyoro is a local language. Ladefoged, Glick, and Criper (1972) report it is the official vernacular in several Ugandan school districts and agricultural information services and is broadcast about 9 hours per week in Uganda.
A standardized orthography was established in 1947.
One set of learning materials appears to be sufficient.
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