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The Phonology of Mada MINISTRY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION The Phonology of Mada Eszter Ernst-Kurdi SIL BP 1299 Yaoundé Cameroon 2017 © 2017 SIL International This paper concerns the Mada language, spoken in the District of Tokombere, Department of Mayo-Sava, in the Far North Region of Cameroon. ISO 639-3 language code: mxu 2 Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 3 Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... 5 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Population ............................................................................................................................... 7 1.2 Classification ........................................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Previous research .................................................................................................................... 8 1.4 The present research .............................................................................................................. 8 2 Phonology ....................................................................................................................................... 9 2.1 The skeleton of roots .............................................................................................................. 9 2.1.1 Nouns .............................................................................................................................. 9 2.1.2 Verbs ............................................................................................................................. 10 2.2 Consonants............................................................................................................................ 11 2.2.1 Interpreting complex consonants ................................................................................. 12 2.2.2 Plosives .......................................................................................................................... 14 2.2.3 Implosives ..................................................................................................................... 16 2.2.3 Prenasalised plosives .................................................................................................... 16 2.2.4 Laminals and fricatives .................................................................................................. 18 2.2.5 Labialised velars ............................................................................................................ 23 2.2.6 Nasals ............................................................................................................................ 24 2.2.7 Liquids ........................................................................................................................... 26 2.2.8 Semi-vowels .................................................................................................................. 27 3 2.2.10 Geminate consonants ................................................................................................... 28 2.3 Vowels ................................................................................................................................... 36 2.3.1 Evidence of contrast between /V/ and /Ø/ .................................................................. 37 2.3.2 Variants and distribution .............................................................................................. 37 2.3.3 Vowel raising ................................................................................................................. 38 2.3.4 Long vowels ................................................................................................................... 41 2.4 Prosodies ............................................................................................................................... 42 2.4.1 Palatalisation ................................................................................................................. 44 2.4.2 Labialisation .................................................................................................................. 46 2.4.3 Palatalisation and labialisation together ...................................................................... 49 2.4.4 Lexical meaning of prosodies ........................................................................................ 50 2.5 Tone ...................................................................................................................................... 50 2.5.1 Lexical tone ................................................................................................................... 51 2.5.2 Grammatical tone ......................................................................................................... 52 2.6 Metrical structure ................................................................................................................. 56 2.6.1 Vowel raising caused by metrical structure .................................................................. 57 2.6.2 Variable length morphemes ......................................................................................... 57 3 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 59 4 Suggestions for further research .................................................................................................. 60 References ............................................................................................................................................ 61 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................... 63 4 Abbreviations [……] Phonetic data /……/ Phonemic data <….> Orthographic form /j……/ The word carries palatalisation prosody /……w/ The word carries labialisation prosody /j……w/ The word carries both palatalisation and labialisation prosody C Consonant phoneme DIR Directional suffix DIR.OBJ Direct object H High tone IMP Imperative IPFV Imperfective IRR Irrealis L Low tone LAB Labialisation prosody NEG Negation OBJ Object PAL Palatalisation prosody PFV Perfective PL Plural POSS Possesive 5 POT Potential REA Realis SBJ Subject SF Surface form SG Singular TAM Tense, Aspect, Mood UF Underlying form V Vowel phoneme /Ø/ Zero, absence of phonemic value is realised as… ~ Free variation # Syllable or word boundary . Syllable break V́ High tone on the vowel V̄ Mid tone on the vowel V̀ Low tone on the vowel V̏ Lowered low tone on the vowel 6 1 Introduction 1.1 Population The Mada language is spoken in the District of Tokombere, Department of Mayo-Sava, in the Far- North Region of Cameroon. The number of the Mada population has been estimated at 17.000 (Simons & Fennig, 2017). The Mada are one of the larger ethnic groups among the kirdis1 of this region. They are neighbours with the Mouyang, Zoulgo and Ouldeme (Richard, 1977). Figure 1: Linguistic map of the area (LACITO, 2014) The people group is made up of 13 clans, all descendants of the same man, the founder of the tribe whose name was Mada2 (Richard, 1977). Some clans settled on the plain while others stayed in the Mada mountains till this day. From a sociolinguistic point of view the distinction between the mountain groups and the groups from the plain is rather important. There are several dialects, but all of them understand each other and claim to speak the same language. According to the Ethnologue’s Language Cloud, Mada is classified on the EGIDS3 scale, that is designed to measure language vitality, as a language belonging to the category ‘6a, vigorous’ that is ‘unstandardized and in vigorous use among all generations’ (Simons & Fennig, 2017). 1 A collective name used for indigenous people groups of the surrounding mountains. 2 For a detailed description of the linage, please see the Appendix. 3 Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale 7 1.2 Classification According to the Ethnologue, Mada is an Afro-Asiatic language, further specified as Chadic, Biu- Mandara, A, A5 with the international ISO code [mxu] (Simons & Fennig, 2017). The Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun classified Mada as Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, Centre-West, Wandala-Mafa, South, 153 (Dieu, 1983, p. 357). 1.3 Previous research A lot of research has been done previously in Mada starting from the 1970s. First André Brunet from the Catholic Mission of Mayo-Ouldeme studied and analysed the language in depth. Later on, in 2000, Barreteau and Brunet published the Dictionnaire mada containing a brief phonological and grammatical description as well as a bilingual Mada-French, French-Mada dictionary with about 8000 entries altogether. In 2003, in the framework of a NACALCO4 project, Hubert Nkoumou was sent to do further research and to standardise the language. He wrote his MA (Nkoumou, 2003) thesis on the phonology of Mada. Nkoumou also created a tentative alphabet and some orthography rules. 1.4 The present research The present research was undertaken with the authorisation of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation (research permit number: 021/MINRESI/B00/C00/C10/C11)
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