Alagwa language

Alagwa
Spoken in	Tanzania
Region	Dodoma region
Ethnicity	Alagwa
Native speakers	30,000  (2001)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Cushitic South Rift West Rift NW Rift Alagwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wbj

Alagwa is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Dodoma region. Some Alagwa have shifted to other languages such as Sandawe.

Grammar

Word order

Alagwa sentences have a generalized order [Subject X Auxiliary Y Verb Z], and elements of the sentence other than the subject appear in the positions labelled X, Y, and Z, depending on their information status in the clause. New material tends to appear in the post-verbal position, Z, while old information appears in the pre-auxiliary position, X.

The following example (Kiessling 2007:138) shows the noun yaawáa 'dowry' introduced as new information after the verb in the first sentence and repeated as old information before the auxiliary ningi in the second sentence.

makimoo-w-ód,	ning-aa	xay-ee’	ningi	bu’-i-yee’	yaawáa
guy-M-D	SEQ:S3-ABL	come:3-PF.PL	SEQ:S3	pay-3-PF.PL	dowry
'that guy, they [i.e. the lions] came and paid the dowry.'
maa	dende’ee-w-ós	yaawáa	ningi	bu’-i-yee’
so	folks-N-3SG.POSS	dowry	SEQ:O3PL	pay-3-PF.PL
'His folks paid the dowry.'

References

• Ethnologue entry for Alagwa
• Kiesling, Roland. 2007. Alagwa functional sentence perspective and "incorporation". Omotic and Cushitic Language Studies. Papers from the Fourth Cushitic Omotic Conference, Leiden, 10-12 April 2003. Edited by Azeb Amha, Maarten Mous, Graziano Savà. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89645-482-9.
• Mous, Maarten. 2001. Alagwa basic syntax. In New data and new methods in Afroasiatic linguistics. Zaborski, Andrzej (ed.), 125-135. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.