Introduction

Inside the Nilo-Saharan language family, the Dholuo language—also called Luo—belongs to the Luo-Acholi group. Being mutually intelligible, it has tight linguistic relationships with other African languages like Acholi and Lango. The language is very common in the areas around Lake Victoria, such as Siaya, Kisumu, Homabay, and Migori. It is spoken in nations like Kenya and Tanzania. It also reaches into Tanzania's North Mara, close to the Kenyan border. It is estimated that there are 6.2 million Dholuo language speakers worldwide.

The Luo community boasts a robust tradition of oral literature, encompassing folklore, proverbs, and riddles, which holds significance across diverse social, cultural, and ceremonial settings. Numerous literary works are available in Dholuo, with some also presented in English, serving to document and convey the richness of Luo culture, its traditions, norms, and ways of life.

Dholuo employs a modified Roman alphabet for its written expression, a development influenced by the missionary efforts in the early 20th century. Like many other African languages, Dholuo is characterized as a tonal language, with distinct tones—rising, falling, low, and high—playing a vital role in word differentiation. Missionaries played a pivotal role in not only translating religious texts, particularly the Bible, into Dholuo but also in the broader task of shaping written forms for various African languages.

Beyond translation, missionaries demonstrated a dedicated commitment by establishing formal education in regions where they were stationed. This educational initiative aimed to empower converts with literacy skills, fostering the dissemination of missionary goals. In collaboration with literate local members, missionaries contributed to the development of Dholuo grammar, known as nyukta, during the early 20th century. This grammatical framework became instrumental in foundational teachings.

The resultant written systems, utilizing the modified Roman alphabet, were integrated into educational curricula. This integration played a significant role in advancing literacy within the community, marking a noteworthy contribution to the proliferation of the newly introduced writing system.

Alphabet
Dholuo alphabet is known as nyukta mag Dholuo. Dholuo alphabet does not have all the letters in the latin alphabet because of certain pronunciations. It missed v, q, x  in its alphabet

Full alphabet is
Lowercase letters: a, b, c, d, e, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y, z
Uppercase letters: A, B, C, D, E, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O ,P, R, S,T, U, W, Y, Z.

Vowels 

Dholuo exhibits five distinct vowel phonemes, each contributing to word differentiation. These vowel sounds are characterized by the advanced tongue root (ATR) feature, denoting that the production involves pulling the root of the tongue forward, thereby imparting a breathy quality to the vowel.
A, e, i, o, u 

Consonants 
b, c, d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, t, w, y, z.