Margi language
Chadic language of Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad
Margi, also known as Marghi and Marghi Central, is a Chadic language (a branch of Afroasiatic) spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. It is perhaps the best described of the Biu-Mandara branch of that family. Marghi South language and Putai are closely related and sometimes considered dialects of Margi.
There are several kinds of Marghi language, including Madube, Izge, Lassa, Gulak, Damboa, Mulgwai, Uba and Sukur.
01Phonology
Vowels
According to Maddieson (1987), Margi is noted for having a vertical vowel system, with only two phonemic vowels, /ɨ/ and /a/, in native vocabulary. Loan words also distinguish /ɛ/ and /o/.
Consonants
Margi has a large consonant inventory, with a number of labialised consonants and typologically infrequent speech sounds such as a labiodental flap. Hoffmann (1963) describes 84 consonantal phonemes, a very large number compared to that of most languages. This system, with a great number of non-click consonants, compares to that of the Caucasian language Ubykh, having the largest inventory of any language without clicks. However, Hoffmann's list of consonants includes all sequences of consonant clusters occurring in onsets in the language. Many of these clusters have since been analysed as sequences, such as /pt/ and /bz/. If labialized consonants are counted separately, there are 66 consonants that remain in the analysis, and 54 if it is interpreted as a /Cw/ sequence.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio- velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sibilant | lateral | |||||||||||||
| plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | |||||||
| Nasal | m | mʷ | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʷ | t | tʷ | ts | tʃ | c | k | kʷ | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | bʷ | d | dz | dʒ | ɟ | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||||||
| glot. implosive | ɓ̰ | ɓ̰ʷ | ɗ̰ | |||||||||||
| prenasal vl. | ᵐp | ⁿt | ⁿtʷ | ⁿts | ⁿtsʷ | ⁿtʃ | ᶮc | ᵑk | ᵑkʷ | |||||
| prenasal vd. | ᵐb | ᵐbʷ | ⁿd | ⁿdz | ⁿdʒ | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʷ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | fʷ | s | sʷ | ɬ | ɬʷ | ʃ | ç | x | ʍ | |||
| voiced | v | vʷ | z | ɮ | ʒ | ʝ | ɣ | |||||||
| Approximant | central | l | j | w | ||||||||||
| glottalized | j̰ | w̰ | ||||||||||||
| Vibrant | ⱱ | r | ||||||||||||
The velar /ɣ/ may be closer to an approximant [ɰ]. The closely related language Bura is similar but has a palatalised lateral series as well. /ⱱ/ is used in mimesis rather than in lexical vocabulary. The glottalised consonants /ɓ̰ ɓ̰ʷ ɗ̰/ have been described as either creaky voiced or implosive; according to Maddieson, they are evidently both, as in Hausa.
The sequences that Hoffmann included in his consonant inventory are all labial-coronal:
- ps [fs], pɬ, pç [fç], pt, pts, ptʃ, mpt, mpts, mptʃ, bz [vz], bɮ, (bʝ [vʝ]), bd, bdz, bdʒ, mbd, mbdz, mbdʒ, ɓ̰ɗ̰, mn
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Margi language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Afro asiatic peoples nigeria.png by Unknown author, Public domain
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