Na-French Lexicon

Na-French Lexicon with Introduction in English John M. Keegan Kodé Koutou The Sara-Bagirmi Languages Project Morkeg Books Cuenca Third edition April, 2014 Updated versions and information on the Sara-Bagirmi Language Project are available at http://morkegbooks.com/Services/World/Languages/SaraBagirmi Acknowledgements Special thanks to Kodé Koutou for his remarkable patience helping me to come to understand his language. Mr. Koutou was the fourth collaborator with whom I attempted to learn Sara Kaba Na, and through his efforts I was finally able to make sense of his language. Na has proven to be very different from the Sara languages with which I was more familiar. Thanks to the staff at SIL-N’djamena, and especially Judy and Jim McCabe and Paul Beadle, for their kind hospitality. Thanks also to Brian Keegan for typing the information from the Danay et al (1986) dictionary into the Sara-Bagirmi database. Thanks also to Jim Roberts of SIL-N’djamena for taking the time to review the grammatical introduction to this work. The bulk of Jim’s insightful comments, observations and corrections—around 100 of them in all– have been incorporated into the description. This work was made possible by grants from the National Endowment to the Humanities (grants FN-5007410 and FN-5010412). Any opinions, findings or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NEH. i Introduction John M. Keegan Na, also known as Sara Kaba Na, is a Sara Kaba language used by some 35,000 speakers in the area around Kyabé in southern Chad. There are also a large number of speakers in the Chadian capital N’djamena. The Sara Kaba languages are a subgroup of Sara-Bagirmi, a grouping of some 29 Central Sudanic languages of the Nilo-Saharan family. Frawley (2003) and Lewis, Simons, and Fennig (2013), mistakenly classify the Sara Kaba languages as a member group of the Sara Proper languages. On the basis of the language data in Palayer’s (2006) dictionary of Deme, my work in Kulfa, and the information contained in this Na lexicon, I have concluded that the Sara Kaba group needs to be separated from the Sara Languages, forming their own subgroup within Sara-Bagirmi. I will discuss the many reasons for this below. This lexicon contains approximately 2780 words, 2000 sample sentences, and 580 idiomatic expressions. The Na data was gathered in N’djamena during the summers of 2012 et 2013, working principally with Kodé Koutou. The work is based on the Dictionnaire Sara-Kaba-Na – Français, (Danay et al [1986]), published at the Collège Charles Lwanga in Sarh. This entire work has been reviewed, numerous corrections made, and a fair number of words removed when they were not recognized by Mr. Koutou. A revision of the meanings for the words was undertaken, for it became clear as sample sentences were added that a large number of the words did not mean what Danay et al [1986] said they did. Parts of Speech, missing from Danay et al, were added, as were sentences for more than half of the words. A preliminary grammatical introduction has also been added. The primary goal here has been to provide basic information regarding the structures needed to be able to read the sentences in this lexicon. This Na lexicon provides an excellent starting point for a future dictionary of the language. The quality of the data contained here is generally high. A recording has been made for the vast majority of the words and sentences, allowing us to carefully compare the written and spoken forms. A spell check has been run on all the sentences and expressions to make sure that they contain no words which do not appear in the dictionary database, and numerous additional checks have been made. However, there remains much to be completed. There are a fair number of features of the phonology, morphology and syntax that require further investigation, including basic elements such as tonal changes, auxiliaries, and uses of prepositions. While a large number of sample sentences were added, there remain over 1200 words that have no samples, and many additional meanings of words also lack examples. A number of words from Danay et al were left out because Mr. Koutou did not know them. It is my hope that over the next two years we will able to fill these gaps and create a genuine dictionary of this fascinating language. ii Abbreviations Aux. - auxiliary verb pl. - plural Av. - adverb Pr. - pronoun Cmp. - complementizer (type PrA - pronominal affix of subordinating qqc - quelque chose conjunction) qqn - quelqu’un Cnj. - conjunction Spc. - specifier (article Exp. - idiomatic expression or demonstrative) fréq. - frequentitive NPl - plural noun marker Id. - ideophone Num. - number Inf. - infinitive v. - voir Inj. - interjection V. - verb Int. - interrogative VN - nom verbal Loc. - locative VPl - plural verb subject N. - noun marker NP. - proper noun VT - transitive verb Alphabet Vowels a like the 'a' in Spanish ‘gato’. ê open 'o', pronounced similar ½ heavily nasalized 'a'; like the to the ‘aw’ in English ‘law’, or 'augh' 'ans' in French 'sans'. in English 'caught', as spoken in e like the 'é' in French 'arrivé'. most of the Northeast Corridor or the › similar to the ‘e’ in English Great Lakes area, but shorter. ‘met’. u similar to the ‘u’ in Spanish i like the ‘i’ in Spanish ‘si’. ‘cuna’. o like the ‘o’ in Spanish ‘gota’, similar to first 'o' in English 'coconut'. Very rounded. iii Consonants b like ‘b’ in English 'bad' or in ng ([§g]) in initial and inter- French ‘beau’. vocalic position, similar to 'ng' in ß implosive bilabial, extreme English 'single'. In final position it is lowering of the larynx which pronounced like the 'ng' in 'sing'. produces the distinctive sound of the nj a combination of 'n' and 'j', sharp intake of air as it rushes in to where the 'n' is lightly pronounced, equalize the pressure when the stop is and does not constitute a separate released. syllable. [Ž] pronounced like the ‘ch’ in … palatal nasal, similar to the English ‘cheese’. Only found in one ‘gn’ in French ‘onion’, or ‘ñ’ in word in Na. Spanish ‘caña’. d like the 'd' in English 'die' or p My impression is that ‘p’ is French ‘des’. not very aspirated, closer to the 'p' in g similar to the 'g' in English English 'spit' than it is to the ‘p’ in 'go' or 'give'. 'pit'. h similar to the 'h' in English r Shortly trilled 'r', similar to 'have'. the 'rr' in Spanish 'burro', but shorter. j like the 'j' in English 'joke'. Is often pronounced ÷. k similar to the 'c' in English ÷ Implosive alveolar, extreme 'scoot'; relatively unaspirated. lowering of the larynx which l like the 'l' in English 'lake' or produces the distinctive sound of the in French ‘les’. sharp intake of air as it rushes in to m like the 'm' in English 'miss' equalize the pressure when the stop is or in French ‘mes’. released. Possibly the same as mb a combination of 'm' and 'b', phoneme as ‘r’. where the 'm' is lightly pronounced, s Like the 's' in English 'soup'. and does not constitute a separate t like the 't' in English 'stoop'; syllable. less aspirated then the ‘t’ in English n like the 'n' in English 'never' ‘top’. or Spanish ‘nunca’ v ‘explosive’ labio-dental frica- nd a combination of 'n' and 'd', tive occurring only in ideophones. where the 'n' is lightly pronounced, w like the ‘w’ in English ‘wet’. and does not constitute a separate See also diphthongs. syllable. y when beginning a syllable, like the 'y' in English 'yes'. See also diphthongs Alphabetical Order a, b, ß, d, e, › , g, h, i, j, k, l, m, mb,n, nd,ng,nj,…, o, ê, p, r, ÷, s, t, u, w, y iv Phonology Vowel Phonology Unlike the Sara Languages, the weak vowel ‘‹’ does not exist in Na, nor does schwa ‘Â’. Nasal vowels do not occur in Na at the phonemic level. While vowels are pronounced nasalized when adjacent to nasal consonants, there are no phonemic contrasts between oral and nasalized vowels. In the Sara Languages such contrasts are common. There exists a clear contrast between ‘e’ and ‘› ’ in Na, a contrast that is not found in any of the Sara Languages: kèë ‘basket for winnowing’ k™Š ‘to drink (inf.)’ ké ‘in vain’ k™¨ ‘type of tree’ kŠhŠ ‘small market in village’ kèhè ‘to weed for the second time’ The functional load of the contrast is not extensive. The vowel ‘› ’ is relatively rare, and while there are no words which consist of a single ‘e’ (without a consonant following), there are several cases with ‘› ’ (e.g. ™Š ‘to drink’). Further, one of the most common patterns in which ‘› ’ occurs is in the ‘ê...› ’ pattern where the intervening consonant is ‘h’ or ‘w’. The vowel ‘e’, on the other hand, is never found in this pattern with these consonants, but when the intervening consonant is not ‘h’ or ‘w’, then the final vowel is always ‘e’: a. nûhŠ ‘moon’ ngîhŠ ‘to peel’ ngîwŠ ‘young woman’ kûwŠ ‘type of bird’ b. bûmbë ‘type of tree’ ßôßë ‘to get very dirty’ ßûnë ‘tree squirrel’ gûbë ‘field’ Nonetheless, as we have shown above, there do exist a few clear contrasts, and ‘› ’ needs to be considered a phoneme in Na. Vowel Length Our initial analysis of Na suggests that vowel length is probably not phonemic in Na. This contrasts with the closely related Deme language, for which Palayer (2006:21) shows numerous cases of contrasts based on solely v on the length of the vowel.

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