Afade language

Afade
Afaɗə
Native to	Cameroon, Nigeria
Region	Far North Province, Cameroon; Borno State, Nigeria
Native speakers	5,000 in Cameroon (2004) unknown number in Nigeria
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic Biu–Mandara Kotoko (B.1) North Afade
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aal
Glottolog	afad1236

Afade (Afaɗə) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern Nigeria and northwestern Cameroon.

Classification

Afade is a member of the Biu-Mandara group of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. It is related to the Cameroonian languages Mpade, Maslam, Malgbe, Mser, and Lagwan.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labial-velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n
Tenuis plosive	p		t			k	kp	ʔ
Voiced plosive	b		d		ɟ	ɡ	ɡb	ʔ
Ejective	pfʼ	t̪θʼ			cʼ	kʼ
Implosive	ɓ		ɗ
Fricative	f		s ɬ	ʃ				h
Resonant			l r		j		w

Afade has a large inventory of consonants, including ejectives, implosives, and labial-velar stops. The vowels of Afade are /i u e ɤ o ɛ ɔ a ɑ/. /a/ is front, rather than central.

Geographic distribution

The speakers of Afade are the indigenous Kotoko people of Cameroon and Nigeria. In Cameroon, it is spoken in the far North region: Logone-and-Chari division, south Makari subdivision, Afade area. The language is spoken by 6,700 Cameroon speakers.

In Nigeria, Afade is spoken by 40,000 speakers in Borno state, Ngala LGA, 12 villages.

There are no known dialects.

References

• P. Bouny. 1977. "Inventaire phonetique d'un parler Kotoko: le Mandagué de Mara," Etudes Phonologiques Tschadiennes. Ed. Jean-Pierre Caprile. Paris: SELAF. Pages 59–77.