The Gula Iro language (autonym kùláál) is a Bua language

Bua languages

The Bua languages are a subgroup of the Mbum–Day subgroup of the Savanna languages spoken by fewer than 30,000 people in southern Chad in an area stretching roughly between the Chari River and the Guera Massif. They were labeled "G13" in Joseph Greenberg's Adamawa language-family proposal...

 spoken by some 3,500 people (as of 1991) north and east of Lake Iro in southern Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

, between the Bola and Salamat

Bahr Salamat

Bahr Salamat is an intermittent river in Chad. It flows south into the Chari River. The river flows, when it does, through the community of Am Timan and through the a protected area, the Bahr Salamat Faunal Reserve. It flows with water....

 rivers. It has four dialects, according to Pairault:

• páṭóól, the northernmost and the least comprehensible to speakers of the other dialects, spoken in and around Badi
  Badi
  Badi may refer to:People:*Badí‘, an early Bahá'í martyr from Persia*Badi II, ruler of the Kingdom of Sennar*Badi III, ruler of the Kingdom of Sennar*Badi IV, ruler of the Kingdom of Sennar...
  
  ;
• pòŋààl, by the north shore of the lake, spoken in and around Boum Kabir, Boum Sarher, and Tordjigel;
• tɩ́ààlà, spoken east and south of the lake, including Kouré, Bouni, Tormorhal, and Masidjanga;
• tííṭààl, the easternmost, spoken in various villages west of Tamba;

to which SIL

SIL International

SIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...

 adds a fifth, Korintal, spoken in Tieou.

Gula Iro is very closely related to Zan Gula and Bon Gula, but they are not mutually comprehensible.

Sounds

The consonants, in with their orthography, are:

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Labiodental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Apico Apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives... -dental	Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Plosives	p		t	ṭ		k
Fricatives		f			s		h
Liquid Liquid Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter . Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly... s	w		l		y
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m		n		ñ	ŋ
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... s			r

The vowels are: a, e, i, o, u, ɛ, ɩ, ɔ, ʋ. Nasalization (only on a, e, o) and length are both contrastive, and diphthongs can be formed. Tone

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

 is phonemic; each vowel must carry high or low tone.

Grammar

Typical word order is subject–verb–object. The basic subject pronouns are: ñó I, mó you (sg.), á he/she/it, pʋ́ we (exclusive), én we (inclusive), í you (pl.), ʋ́ they.

External links

• Ethnologue entry
• Map of Gula Iro language from the LL-Map project
• Information on Gula Iro language from the MultiTree project