Bench language

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Bench
Bentʂnon
Spoken in Ethiopia
Region Bench Maji Zone, SNNPR
Total speakers 173,586 (mother-tongue speakers as of 1998)
Language family Afro-Asiatic
Language codes
ISO 639-1 None
ISO 639-2 afa
ISO 639-3 bcq
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Bench (also called Gimira, considered a derogatory term) is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people (as of 1998) in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira. It has three mutually intelligible dialects: Bench proper, She, and Mer.[1] In unusual variance from most of the other languages in Africa, Bench has retroflex consonant phonemes. [2] The language is also noteworthy in that it has six phonemic tones, one of only a handful of languages in the world that have this many. [3]

Contents

[edit] Sounds

The phonemic vowels of Bench are /i e a o u/

There are six phonemic tones: five level tones (numbered 1 to 5 in the literature, with 1 being the lowest) and one rising tone 23 /˨˧/. The top tone is sometimes realized as a high rising 45 [˦˥].[4] On the vowel o, they are /ő ó ō ò ȍ ǒ/

The consonants are:

Bilabial Coronal Palato-
alveolar		 Retroflex Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive Voiceless p t k ʔ
Voiced b d ɡ
Ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ
Affricate Voiceless ts tʃ tʂ
Ejective tsʼ tʃʼ tʂʼ
Fricative Voiceless s ʃ ʂ h
Voiced z ʒ ʐ
Rhotic r
Approximant l j

All of these can occur palatalized, but only before /a/, suggesting an alternate analysis of a sixth phonemic vowel /ja/. Labialized consonants are reported for p, b, s, ɡ, and ʔ, but their phonemic status is unclear; they only occur after /i/.

For the phoneme /p/ the realizations of [pʰ] and [f] are in free variation; /j/ has the allophone [w] before back vowels.

The syllable structure is (C)V(C)(C)(C) + tone or (C) N (C), where C represents any consonant, V any vowel, N any nasal, and brackets an optional element. CC clusters consist of a continuant followed by a plosive, fricative, or affricate; in CCC clusters, the first consonant must be one of /r/ /j/ /m/ /p/ or /pʼ/, the second either /n/ or a voiceless fricative, and the third /t/ or /k/.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Nouns

Plurals may optionally be formed by adding the suffix -n̄d; however, these are rarely used except with definite nouns. Eg: wű īnɡn̄d "her relatives"; ātsn̄dī bá ka̋nɡ "all the people".

[edit] Pronouns

[edit] Personal pronouns

English oblique subject locative vocative
I tá tān tȁtʼn̄
you (sg.) ní nēn nȉtʼn̄ wȍ (m.), hȁ (f.)
you (hon.) jìnt jìnt jìnt
he jı̋ jīs _
he (hon.) ı̋ts ı̋ts ı̋ts
she wű wūs _
she (hon.) ɡēn ɡēn ɡēn
himself/herself bá bān bȁtʼn̄
we (excl.) nú nūn nȕtʼn̄
we (incl.) nı̋ nīn nȉtʼn̄
you (pl.) jìntȁjkʼn̄ jìntȁjkʼn̄ jìntȁjkʼn̄
they ı̋tsȁjkʼn̄ ı̋tsȁjkʼn̄ ı̋tsȁjkʼn̄

Bá goes slightly beyond being a reflexive pronoun; it can mark any third person that refers to the subject of the sentence, eg:

jȉsī bá dōr ɡȍtùē
he.S own sheep sell.he.Fin[clarification needed]
"he sold his (own) sheep"
bȍdám hānkʼá bājístāɡùʂn̄ pāntsʼà ěz
road.abl go.self self.be.stat.det.when leopard-NPMk[clarification needed] big see.he.Fin[clarification needed]
"when he was going along the road, he saw a big leopard"

The oblique form is basic, and serves as object, possessive, and adverbial. The subject form has three variants: normal (given above), emphatic - used when the subject is particularly prominent in the sentence, especially sentence-initially - and reduced, used as part of a verb phrase. The "locative" term means "to, at, or for one's own place or house", eg:

kȁrtá tȁtʼn̄ tā hānkʼùē
return.I to.my.house I go.I.Fin[clarification needed]
"I went home"

[edit] Determiners

The main determiners are "that, the" (masc. ùʂ, fem. èn, pl. ènd) and "this" (masc. hàʂ, fem. hàn, pl. hànd). As suffixes on a verb or an ablative or locative phrase, they indicate a relative clause. Eg:

ātsn̄dà hàndīs hǎrám bād átsn̄dȁ?
person.pl.NPMk these.O what.abl separate make.fut.Intl[clarification needed]?
"how can I separate these people?"
átsín kétn̋ jískèn
woman house.loc be.that

"the woman who is in the house"

[edit] Demonstratives

The demonstratives include hánɡ "here", ēk "there (nearby)", jìnk "there (far away)", nēɡ "down there", nèk "up there". Alone, or with the determiner suffixes ùʂ or àʂ added, these function as demonstrative pronouns "this person", "that person", etc. With the noun phrase marker -à, they become demonstrative adjectives. Eg:

hànɡ nás dȁdn̄ àtāɡùʂn̄
here man near reach.stat.det.when
"when he came near to the man..."
njāʔà nēɡà hàndī
boy.NPMk down.there.NPMk det.S
"these boys down there"

[edit] Numbers

The numbers are:

1 mātʼ
2 nám
3 káz
4 ód
5 ùtʂ
6 sàpm̄
7 nàpm̄
8 nyàrtn̄
9 ìrstn̄
10 ta̋m
100 bǎl
1000 wňm

20, 30, etc. are formed by adding tàm "ten" (with tone change) to the unit. In compound numbers, -á is added to each 'figure, thus:

13 ta̋má kázá
236 nám bǎlá kāztàmá sàpm̄á

When a cardinal number functions as an adjective, the suffix -ās can be added (eg njāʔà kázās "three children".) Ordinal numbers are formed by suffixing -nás to the cardinal, eg: ódnás "fourth".

[edit] Adjectives

Adjectives are sometimes intensified by changing the tone to top; eg ěz "big" → e̋z "very big".

[edit] Verbs

Verbs with monosyllabic roots can have three different forms of their active stems: the singular imperative, which is just the root; the past stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by adding -k (with changes to the preceding consonant); and the future stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by changing the tone from mid 3 to high 4 or from bottom 1 to top 5. Some have causative (formed by adding -ās or -̏s, and changing mid tone to high) and passive (formed by adding -n̄, -t, or -̏k to the causative) forms. Verbal nouns are formed from the stem, sometimes with tone change or addition or -t.

Verbs with polysyllabic roots have at least two forms, one with an intransitive or passive meaning and one with a transitive or causative meaning; the former ends in -n̄, the latter in -ās. A passive may be formed by ending in -āsn̄. Verbal nouns are formed by taking the bare stem without -n̄ or -ās.

Compound verbs are formed with màk "say" or màs "cause to say", a formation common among Ethiopian languages.

The primary tenses are simple past (formed from the past stem), future (future stem plus -n̄s-), present perfect (from present participle stem); negative (future stem plus -árɡ-.) Eg: hām → hānkʼùē "he went"; hámsm̄sùē "he will go"; hānkʼńsùē "he has gone".

There are four corresponding participles: past (formed from the past stem), present perfect (formed from the past stem with the suffix -ńs-, -ńɡ, or -ánkʼ-), imperfect (formed from the future stem with the stative suffix -āɡ-), and negative (formed from the future stem with the negative suffix -árɡ- or -ù- or a person/number marker.) The order of affixes is: root-(tense)-(negative)-(foc. pn.)-person/number-marker.

[edit] Orthography and literature

The New Testament has been published in the Bench language, using an orthography based on the Ethiopian syllabary. Tones are not indicated. Retroflex consonants are indicated by such techniques as using extra symbols from the syllabary (the "nigus s") and forming new symbols, (the addition of an extra arm on the left side for "t").

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. "Bench", Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  2. ^ Breeze 1988.
  3. ^ Wedekind 1983, 1985a, 1985b.
  4. ^ Note that this is the East Asian tone numbering convention, and the opposite of the literature for other African languages, where 1 is high and 5 is low. The issue will be avoided here by using IPA diacritics.

[edit] References

  • Breeze, Mary J. 1986. "Personal pronouns in Gimira (Benchnon)."‭ In Ursula Wiesemann (ed.), Pronominal systems, 47-69. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
  • Breeze, Mary. 1988. "Phonological features of Gimira and Dizi."‭ In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic - Omotic: papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic languages, Cologne, January 6-9, 1986, 473-487. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
  • Mary J. Breeze. 1990. "A Sketch of the Phonology and Grammar of Gimira (Benchnon)". In Richard J. Hayward (ed.), Omotic Language Studies, 1-67. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
  • Rapold, Christian. 2006. Towards a grammar of Benchnon. PhD thesis, University of Leiden.
  • Wedekind, Klaus. 1983. "A six-tone language in Ethiopia: Tonal analysis of Benč non (Gimira)."‭ Journal of Ethiopian Studies 16: 129-56.
  • Wedekind, Klaus. 1985a. "Why Bench’ (Ethiopia) has five level tones today."‭ In Ursula Pieper and Gerhard Stickel (eds.), Studia linguistica diachronica et synchronica, 881-901. Berlin: Mouton.
  • Wedekind, Klaus. 1985b. "Thoughts when drawing a map of tone languages."‭ Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 1: 105-24.
  • Wedekind, Klaus. 1990. "Gimo-Jan or Ben-Yem-Om: Benč - Yemsa phonemes, tones, and words."‭ In Richard J. Hayward (ed.), Omotic language studies p. 68-184. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bench_language"