Yeyi language
Yeyi (autoethnonym Shiyeyi) is an endangered Bantu language spoken by perhaps 45,000 people along the Okavango River in Namibia and Botswana. Yeyi, influenced by Juu languages, is one of several Bantu languages along the Okavango with clicks. Indeed, it has the largest known inventory of clicks of any Bantu language, with dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral articulations. Though most of its older speakers prefer Yeyi in normal conversation, it is being gradually phased out in Botswana by a popular move towards Tswana, with Yeyi only being learned by children in a few villages. Yeyi speakers in the Caprivi Strip of north-eastern Namibia, however, retain Yeyi in villages (including Linyanti), but may also speak the regional lingua franca, Lozi.
Grammar
Yeyi is usually classified as a member of the R Zone Bantu languages. It has been phonetically influenced by the Ju languages, though it is no longer in contact with them. The main dialect is called Shirwanga. A slight majority of Botswana Yeyi are monolingual in the national language, Tswana, and most of the rest are bilingual.
Clicks
Yeyi has four click releases, dental ǀ, alveolar ǃ, palatal ǂ, and lateral ǁ. However, the actual number of clicks is disputed, as researchers disagree on how many accompaniments the language contrasts.
Fulop et al. (2002) studied the clicks of a limited vocabulary sample with 13 Yeyi speakers. The accompaniments they found, shown as the palatal series, are:
| Click | Description |
|---|---|
| ǂʰ | aspirated |
| ǂ | tenuis |
| ᶢǂ | voiced |
| ᵑǂ | nasal |
| ǂʔ | glottalized |
| ǂʼ | ejective |
There are in addition prenasalized clicks such as /ŋᶢǂ/ and /ŋǂʼ/, but Fulop et al. analyze these as consonant clusters, not single sounds. In addition, a reported uvular affricated click appears to actually be velar, with the affrication a variant of aspiration, and so has been included under ǂʰ. There is similar velar affrication with the dental ejective click among some speakers.
Unfortunately, the speakers interviewed were not from the core Yeyi-speaking area, and they often disagreed on which clicks to use. Although the six dental clicks (ǀ etc.) were nearly universal, only one of the lateral clicks was (the voiced click ᶢǁ). The alveolar clicks (ǃ etc.) were universal apart from the ejective, which was only attested from one speaker, but two of the palatal clicks were only used by half the speakers, at least in the sample vocabulary. The missing palatal and lateral clicks were substituted with alveolar or sometimes dental clicks (palatals only), and the missing ejective alveolar was substituted with a glottalized alveolar. Both of these patterns are consistent with studies of click loss, though it is possible that these speakers maintain these clicks in other words. 23 of the 24 possible combinations of click release and accompaniment were attested in the sample vocabulary by at least one speaker, the exception being the ejective lateral click *ǁʼ. This research needs to be repeated in an area where the language is still vibrant.
External links
References
- Donnelly, Simon S (1990). Phonology and morphology of the noun in Yeeyi. University of Cape Town: BA Honours dissertation.
- Sean Fulop, Peter Ladefoged, Fang Liu, Rainer Vossen (2002). Yeyi clicks: Acoustic description and analysis.
- Sommer, Gabriele (1995). Sozialer Wandel und Sprachverhalten bei den Yeyi (Botswana), Ethnographie des Sprachwechsels. Cologne.