Niellim language
Encyclopedia
The Niellim language is a Bua language
spoken by some 5,000 people (as of 1993) along the Chari River
in southern Chad
. It is mainly spoken in two areas: one around the city of Sarh
(to which many - perhaps most - speakers have migrated) and one, its traditional home, further north, between about 9°30′ and 9°50′ N, corresponding to the former chiefdoms of Pra, Niellim, and Niou.
Niellim borders on several languages of diverse families – in particular Sara
, Ndam
, and Laal
– and is influenced by the local lingua franca
, Baguirmi
; it has itself strongly influenced Laal
, but also apparently has been influenced by Laal, or a relative of Laal, since much of the common Laal–Niellim vocabulary is not Bua. It is notably homogeneous. As a small minority in Chad, its speakers usually have to learn other languages, mostly (as of 1974) Baguirmi
, Sara
, Arabic
, and Bua
.
The vowels are /i/, /ɨ/, /u/, /e/, /ə/, /a/, and /o/ as well as the diphthongs , /ja/ and wa; all except /ɨ/ can also be given contrastive length and nasalization. Complex vowel harmony
, rather similar to that found in Laal
, is observable.
There are three tone levels: low, mid, high. Any syllable must bear at least one tone; it may bear any combination of two tones, or one of three three-tone combinations: LML, MLH, or HLH.
- adjective
; possessed - possessor. However, possessive pronouns precede the noun.
system; the commonest ways include combinations of internal vowel ablaut, the suffix -gɨ, a change l/n > r, and/or replacing final -a with -i.
("injunctive
" in Boyeldieu's terminology.) They are distinguished by tonal pattern.
Verbs may be preceded by various particles to indicate tense
, aspect
, and mood
: for instance wò continuous, ɓə future, ká obligation. Indirect quoted speech is preceded with the particle ɓə "that".
Verbal nouns may be formed by changing the tone pattern and/or suffixing -li or -la (in which the l becomes n following a nasal) together with internal vowel ablaut.
Verb derivational suffixes include -n intensive (realized as -nì or -ɨ̀n, eg nun "bite" > nùnɨ̀n "gnaw", and sometimes causing internal ablaut), and -gɨ̀ mediopassive (sometimes -gi or -gu, rarely causes internal ablaut).
(From a story recounted by Dakour Yalka Ali, in Boyeldieu 1985, p. 10)
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 5,000 people (as of 1993) along the Chari River
Chari River
The Chari or Shari River is a 949-kilometer-long river of central Africa. It flows from the Central African Republic through Chad into Lake Chad, following the Cameroon border from N'Djamena, where it joins the Logone River waters....
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...
. It is mainly spoken in two areas: one around the city of Sarh
Sarh
Sarh is the third largest city in Chad, after N'Djamena and Moundou. It is the capital of Moyen-Chari region and the department of Barh Köh. It lies 350 miles south-east of the capital Ndjamena on the Chari River...
(to which many - perhaps most - speakers have migrated) and one, its traditional home, further north, between about 9°30′ and 9°50′ N, corresponding to the former chiefdoms of Pra, Niellim, and Niou.
Niellim borders on several languages of diverse families – in particular Sara
Sara language
There are several languages called Sara.*The Sara languages of Southern Chad, especially Sar*Sara language of Indonesia...
, Ndam
Ndam language
Ndam, also known as Dam and Ndamm, is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in the southwestern Chadian prefectures of Tandjilé and Lai. Most of the speakers generally practice traditional religions, Islam, or Christianity. There are two dialects of Ndam—northern and southern,...
, and Laal
Laal language
Laal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River,...
– and is influenced by the local lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
, Baguirmi
Baguirmi language
Bagirmi is the language of the Baguirmi people of Chad, belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family. It is spoken by 44,761 people , mainly in the Chari-Baguirmi Prefecture...
; it has itself strongly influenced Laal
Laal language
Laal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River,...
, but also apparently has been influenced by Laal, or a relative of Laal, since much of the common Laal–Niellim vocabulary is not Bua. It is notably homogeneous. As a small minority in Chad, its speakers usually have to learn other languages, mostly (as of 1974) Baguirmi
Baguirmi language
Bagirmi is the language of the Baguirmi people of Chad, belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family. It is spoken by 44,761 people , mainly in the Chari-Baguirmi Prefecture...
, Sara
Sara language
There are several languages called Sara.*The Sara languages of Southern Chad, especially Sar*Sara language of Indonesia...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, and Bua
Bua language
The Bua language is spoken by some 7,708 people north of the Chari River around Korbol and Gabil in Chad. It is the largest member of the small Bua group of languages and is mutually comprehensible with Fanian.-External links:**...
.
Phonology
The consonants 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:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
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... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p b | t d | c ɟ | k ɡ | ʔ |
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||
| Prenasalised plosive | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | |
| Fricative | s | h | |||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||
| 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 :... approximant |
w̃ | ||||
| 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 | ɲ | 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.... |
r |
The vowels are /i/, /ɨ/, /u/, /e/, /ə/, /a/, and /o/ as well as the diphthongs , /ja/ and wa; all except /ɨ/ can also be given contrastive length and nasalization. Complex vowel harmony
Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
, rather similar to that found in Laal
Laal language
Laal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River,...
, is observable.
There are three tone levels: low, mid, high. Any syllable must bear at least one tone; it may bear any combination of two tones, or one of three three-tone combinations: LML, MLH, or HLH.
Syntax
The typical word order is subject–verb–object (though this can be affected by topic fronting); preposition - prepositional object (- postposition); nounNoun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
- adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
; possessed - possessor. However, possessive pronouns precede the noun.
Pronouns
The basic personal pronouns include: n "I", m "you", r "he, she, it" (with low tone as subjects, high tone as objects), í "you (pl.)", á "they". ("We" does not appear in sources so far examined by the editors.)Nouns
Noun plural formation is quite complex, and includes some apparent relics of a now-absent noun classNoun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
system; the commonest ways include combinations of internal vowel ablaut, the suffix -gɨ, a change l/n > r, and/or replacing final -a with -i.
Verbs
Each verb has two forms: indicative and optativeOptative mood
The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....
("injunctive
Injunctive mood
The injunctive mood was a mood in Sanskrit characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless aorist or imperfect. It typically stood in a main clause and had a subjunctive or imperative meaning; for example, it could indicate intention, e.g. "Indra's heroic...
" in Boyeldieu's terminology.) They are distinguished by tonal pattern.
Verbs may be preceded by various particles to indicate tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
, and mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
: for instance wò continuous, ɓə future, ká obligation. Indirect quoted speech is preceded with the particle ɓə "that".
Verbal nouns may be formed by changing the tone pattern and/or suffixing -li or -la (in which the l becomes n following a nasal) together with internal vowel ablaut.
Verb derivational suffixes include -n intensive (realized as -nì or -ɨ̀n, eg nun "bite" > nùnɨ̀n "gnaw", and sometimes causing internal ablaut), and -gɨ̀ mediopassive (sometimes -gi or -gu, rarely causes internal ablaut).
Prepositions
Common prepositions include gɨ̀ "to (dative)", naà "with", ti "to".Examples
- ɓá̰ tɨba ti ʔùu:l, sì sì, tén w̃àɲ, kà ŕ lápyaà.
- child fall road, go go, find chief, do him hello.
- The child set off, walked and walked, found the chief and greeted him.
- á na ŕ ndúu: ní ŕ ɲì.
- they give him water he drink
- They gave him water to drink.
- jée:l lá ŕ ʔwa̰ ŕ ɓi:r tén w̃àɲ:
- evening too he get-up he ask chief:
- In the evening he got up and asked the chief:
- w̃àɲ, ɲìin hina ḿ ɓá̰ tàa:m. ɛɛ̀, pàáy kəə̀y? ǹ tà:m ḿ ɓá̰ càaw.
- chief I(emph.) come you child seek, eh, is-it what?, I want you child marry (verbal noun)
- "Chief, I have come to seek your daughter; I want to marry your daughter."
(From a story recounted by Dakour Yalka Ali, in Boyeldieu 1985, p. 10)