Mpade language
| Mpadə | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Cameroon, Chad |
| Region | Far North Province, Cameroon; west Chad |
Native speakers | 16,000 in Cameroon (2004)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mpi |
| Glottolog | mpad1242 Mpadengal1301 Ngala |
Mpadə is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and southwestern Chad. Dialects are Bodo, Digam, Mpade (Makari), Shoe (Shewe), and Woulki.[2]
The language is sometimes known as Makari, after one of the towns where it is spoken. Ngala further west (as described by Barth) once spoke a dialect similar to Makari, but it was moribund by the 1920s, the people having shifted to Kanuri.
Phonology
Consonants
Mpade has the following consonants.[3]
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialized | ||||||
| Stops and affricates |
Voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | kʷ | |
| Voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||
| Ejective | tsʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | kʷʼ | |||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||||
| Prenasalized | mb | nd | ŋɡ | ||||
| Fricatives | Voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | ||
| Voiced | z | ||||||
| Nasals | m | n | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Semivowels | j | w | |||||
Vowels
Mpade has the following vowels.[3]
| front | back unrounded |
back rounded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | u |
| Non-High | e | a | o |
Notes
References
- Allison, Sean. 2006. Alphabet et orthographe de Kotoko de Makary (mpadɨ) (Makary Kotoko Orthography Statement) SIL manuscript, 31 pp. Available on-line
- Allison, Sean. 2020. A Grammar of Makary Kotoko. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004422513.