Dictionary of Na Na-French French-Na

Dictionary of Na Na-French French-Na with Introduction in English John M. Keegan Kodé Koutou The Sara-Bagirmi Languages Project Morkeg Books Cuenca First Edition December, 2015 Updated versions and sound dictionaries produced by the Sara-Bagirmi Language Project are available at http://morkegbooks.com/Services/World/Languages/SaraBagirmi Acknowledgements I wish to thank the staff at SIL in N’djamena, and especially Judy and Jim McCabe and Paul Beadle, for their kindness and hospitality. I could not have completed this work without the assistance that SIL provides. Jim Roberts (SIL and the University of N’djamena) took the time to review the original version of the grammatical introduction to this work. The bulk of his insightful comments, observations and corrections have been incorporated into the description. Thanks also to Brian Keegan for typing the information from the Danay et al (1986) dictionary into the Sara-Bagirmi database. 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 also to Gata Mathias, who also worked with me on several occasions. This work and others in this series were made possible by grants from the National Endowment to the Humanities (grants FN-5007410, FN-5010412 and FN50134-14). 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 one of three subgroups 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 dictionary, 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 this language classification issue in some detail below. This dictionary contains more than 3180 words, 4040 sample sentences, and 720 idiomatic expressions. The Na data was gathered in N’djamena during the summers of 2012, 2013. 2014 and 2015 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 number of words were removed when they were not recognized by Mr. Koutou. A revision of the meanings for the words was undertaken, for it soon became clear as sample sentences were added that a fair number of the words did not mean what Danay et al [1986] said they meant. Parts of Speech, missing from Danay et al, were added, as were sample sentences for nearly 92% of the words. A grammatical introduction in English is also included. The primary goal here has been to provide basic information regarding the structures needed to be able to read the sentences in this lexicon. A discussion is also included concerning the classification of the Sara Kaba languages, which continue to be classified incorrectly in the Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons and Fennig [2015]). This version of the dictionary replaces previous project lexicons and dictionaries, and it includes a French-Na lexicon, more readable fonts, and the results of the research conducted during the summer of 2015. ii Abbreviations pl. - plural Aux. - auxiliary verb plus. - plusieurs Av. - adverb Pr. - pronoun Cmp. - complementizer (type of PrA - pronominal affix subordinantig conjunction) qqc - quelque chose Cnj. - conjunction qqn - quelqu’un excl. - exclusive Spc. - specifier (article Exp. - idiomatic expression or demonstrative) fréq. - frequentitive NPl - plural noun marker Id. - ideophone Num. - number incl. - inclusive v. - voir Inf. - infinitive V. - verb Inj. - interjection VN - nom verbal Int. - interrogative VPl - plural verb subject Loc. - locative marker N. - noun VT - transitive verb NP. - proper noun iii Alphabet Vowels a like the 'a' in Spanish ‘gato’. open 'o', pronounced similar to e like the 'é' in French 'arrivé'. the ‘aw’ in English ‘law’, or 'augh' in ε lax ‘e’, somewhat similar to the English 'caught', as spoken in most of the ‘e’ in English ‘met’. Northeast Corridor or the Great Lakes i like the ‘i’ in Spanish ‘si’. area, but shorter and with no final glide. o like the ‘o’ in Spanish ‘gota’, u similar to the ‘u’ in Spanish similar to first 'o' in English 'coconut'. ‘cuna’ Very rounded. Consonants b like ‘b’ in English 'bad' or in French ng ([ŋg]) in initial and inter-vocalic ‘beau’. position, similar to 'ng' in English 'single'. ɓ implosive bilabial, extreme lowering of In final position it is pronounced [ŋ], like the larynx which produces a sharp intake the 'ng' in 'sing'. of air as it rushes in to equalize the nj a combination of 'n' and 'j', where the pressure when the stop is released. 'n' is lightly pronounced, and does not [č] pronounced like the ‘ch’ in English constitute a separate syllable. ‘cheese’. (Only found in one word in Na.) ɲ palatal nasal, similar to the ‘gn’ in d like the 'd' in English 'die' or French French ‘oignon’, or ‘ñ’ in Spanish ‘caña’. ‘des’. p My impression is that ‘p’ is not very g similar to the 'g' in English 'go' or aspirated, closer to the 'p' in English 'spit' 'give'. than it is to the ‘p’ in 'pit'. h similar to the 'h' in English 'have'. r Shortly trilled 'r', similar to the 'rr' in j like the 'j' in English 'joke'. Spanish 'burro', but shorter. Often k relatively unaspirated, pro-nounced pronounced in non-final position. further back towards the uvular than in the [] Implosive alveolar, extreme lowering of the larynx which produces a sharp .’ق‘ Sara languages, resembling the Arabic l like the 'l' in English 'lake' or in French intake of air as it rushes in to equalize the ‘les’. pressure when the stop is released. Not m like the 'm' in English 'miss' or in found in final position. French ‘mes’. s Like the 's' in English 'soup'. mb a combination of 'm' and 'b', where t like the 't' in English 'stoop'; less the 'm' is lightly pronounced, and does not aspirated then the ‘t’ in English ‘top’. constitute a separate syllable. w like the ‘w’ in English ‘wet’. n like the 'n' in English 'never' or y when beginning a syllable, like the 'y' Spanish ‘nunca’ in English 'yes'. nd a combination of 'n' and 'd', where the 'n' is lightly pronounced, and does not constitute a separate syllable. Alphabetical Order a, b, ɓ, d, e, ε, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, mb, n, nd, ng, nj, ɲ, o, , p, r/, s, t, u, w, y iv 1. Phonology 1.1 Vowels The phonology of vowels in Na is in general quite similar to that found in the Sara languages. There are four principal differences. First, the vowel ‘’ , typically found in multi-syllabic morphemes in the Sara languages, does not occur in Na. Secondly, the vowel schwa ‘’, an important phoneme in the Central and Western Sara languages, is also absent in Na. Thirdly, nasalized vowels do not occur in Na at the phonemic level. While vowels are pronounced nasalized when adjacent to nasal consonants, and especially the palatal nasal ‘ɲ’, there are no phonemic contrasts between oral and nasalized vowels in Na. In the Sara Languages such contrasts are common. Fourthly, there exists a clear contrast between ‘e’ and ‘ε’ in Na, a contrast that is not found in any of the Sara Languages 1: (1) kèē ‘basket for winnowing’ kεε ‘to drink (inf.)’ ké ‘in vain’ kεέ ‘type of tree’ kεhε ‘small market in village’ kèhè ‘to weed for the second time’ The functional load of this contrast is not heavy. The vowel ‘ε’ is relatively rare, and while there are no words which consist of a single ‘e’ (without a consonant following), there are several cases with ‘ε’ (e.g. εε ‘to drink’). In some cases the distribution of ‘e’ and ‘ε’ is complementary. One of the most common patterns in which ‘ε’ is found is in the ‘...ε’ 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’: (2) a. nhε ‘moon’ nghε ‘to peel’ ngwε ‘young woman’ kwε ‘type of bird’ b. bmbē ‘type of tree’ ɓôɓē ‘to get very dirty’ ɓnē ‘tree squirrel’ gbē ‘field’ 1 The ‘ε’ does occur at the phonetic level in several of the Sara languages, and most especially when a third person pronominal suffix is added to a verb or a noun. However ‘ε’ does not present a phonemic contrast with ‘e’ in the Sara languages. v Nonetheless, as we have shown in (1) above, there do exist clear contrasts, and ‘ε’ needs to be considered a phoneme in Na. When ‘ε’ occurs in the second syllable of a word which begins with a nasal consonant and the intervening consonant is ‘h’, many speakers pronounce it heavily nasalized (e.g.

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