Ruanda and Rundi (properly, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi), of the Rwanda-Rundi Group of Bantu (Guthrie D60), are the mutually intelligible national languages of Rwanda and Burundi, respectively. Ruanda is also spoken in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire; Rundi is also spoken in Uganda.
UBS (1982) notes 4.4 million Kinyarwanda speakers; Kimenyi (personal communication, 1983) notes 5 million first-language speakers of Kinyarwanda in Burundi and 5 million first-language speakers of Kirundi, with 18 million L1 and L2 speakers total for both. Grimes (1996) gives a figure of 9,306,800 speakers of Kinyarwanda and the World Almanac (1998) 6 million speakers of Kirundi.
A standardized orthography has existed since the 1940s, although Goldsmith (personal communication, 1985) notes that the Roman Catholic and Protestant missions use "slightly different orthographic systems."
One set of learning materials appears to be sufficient.
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