Introduction

 

The Bagungu people speak the Lugungu language. The Bagungu reside primarily in Buliisa, Masindi and Hoima districts in North Western Uganda where the number of mother-tongue speakers is over 84,000 people.

 

Until now there has been no Lugungu dictionary available which could be used in schools, to encourage local writers to be more actively involved in committing their cultural stories, beliefs, and local history to paper, and to encourage the development of literature in Lugungu.

 

This dictionary has been compiled from various sources, with most of the words being collected during a community-based word collection workshop that was held in January 2003. The initial database was based on research by James Mbabazi and Ronald Moe from the mid 1990s. Subsequent linguistic research from 1999 - 2005 by Martin Diprose added to the word list. Since then, those working under the auspices of SIL International, including Businge Makolome Robert, Isaac Bitamale, Angalia Mukondo, Seremos Rwahwire, Daniel Wairindi, and Jotham Mugasa have added and updated many other words.

 

We are very much aware of the limitations of this first edition and welcome feedback and corrections. It is our intention to continue working on this dictionary—especially to make corrections where needed. In addition it is planned to make the dictionary available in electronic format on a website. This website will contain the complete dictionary, with alphabetic and semantic meaning based search facilities.

 

Our hope and prayer is that this dictionary will be an important step toward long-term Lugungu language and culture preservation which should go hand in hand with development in the region.

 

Businge Makolome Robert and Martin Diprose

September 2012



SIL International

PO Box 750
Entebbe
UGANDA