Tama language
Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Chad and Sudan
| Tama | |
|---|---|
| Tamongobo | |
| Native to | Chad, Sudan |
| Region | Wadi Fira, West Darfur, South Darfur |
| Ethnicity | Tama, Kimr[1] |
Native speakers | 460,000 (2022–2023)[1] |
Language family | Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Dialects |
|
Writing system | Unwritten |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tma |
| Glottolog | tama1331 |
| Linguasphere | 05-DAA-aa |
Tama, or Tamongobo, is the primary language spoken by the Tama people in Ouaddai, eastern Chad and in Darfur, western Sudan.[2] It is a Taman language which belongs to the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Miisiirii is often considered a dialect, though it is not particularly close.
Demographics
Tama is spoken by 63,000 people in Dar Tama, a well irrigated area near Guéréda that extends from Kebkebiya village to nearby Sudan. There are two nearly identical dialects, one spoken in the northern and central areas, and another one spoken in the south.[3]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | t̪ | k | |||||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɟ | g | ||||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ̪ | ||||||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | h | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Rhotic | r | ɽ | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ɭ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||||
Vowels
| +ATR | -ATR | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Central | Back | Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i | u | ɪ | ʊ | ||
| Mid | e | o | ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Open | ʌ̈ | a | ||||
Vowel length is also distinctive.[4]
References
- ^ a b Tama at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
- ^ Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (2010). Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford University Press. p. 454. ISBN 978-0195337709.
- ^ Rilly, Claude. 2010. Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-9042922372
- ^ Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (2009). Tama. In Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (ed.), Coding Participant Marking: Construction Types in Twelve African Languages: Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 305–330.
External links
- Tama basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
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Part of the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family
Northern k languages | |||||||||||||
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Southern n languages | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Italics indicate extinct languages
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