Tadaksahak language

Dawsahak
Tadáksahak
Native to	Mali, Niger
Ethnicity	Dawsahak
Native speakers	100,000  (2007)
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Songhay Northern Dawsahak
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dsq

Dawsahak
person
people	Idaksahak
language	Tadáksahak

The Dawsahak language, Tadaksahak (also Daoussahak, Dausahaq, and other spellings) is a Songhay language spoken by the pastoralist Idaksahak of the Ménaka area of Mali. Its phonology, verb morphology, and vocabulary has been strongly influenced by the neighboring Tuareg languages, Tamasheq and Tamajaq.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i, iː	u, uː
Mid	e, eː	o, oː
Open	a, aː

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar		Postalveolar or palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
			Plain	Pharyngealized
Nasal		m	n	nˤ		ŋ
Plosive and Affricate	Voiceless		t	tˤ	t͡ʃ	k	q
	Voiced	b	d	dˤ	d͡ʒ	ɡ
Fricative	Voiceless	f	s	sˤ	ʃ	x		ħ	h
	Voiced		z	zˤ	ʒ	ɣ		ʕ
Flap			ɾ	ɾˤ
Lateral			l	lˤ
Approximant					j	w

References

• Regula Christiansen, A grammar of Tadaksahak a northern Songhay language of Mali, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (2010)
• Niels and Regula Christiansen, Some verb morphology features of Tadaksahak, or, Berber or Songhay, this is the question, SIL Electronic Working Papers (2002)
• Regula Christiansen and Stephen H. Levinsohn, Relative clauses in Tadasahak, SIL Electronic Working Papers (2003)
• Michael J. Rueck and Niels Christiansen, Northern Songhay Languages in Mali and Niger: A Sociolinguistic Survey, Proceedings of the 1998 Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Conference (1998)

External links

• Ethnologue report for language code:dsq