Guruntum language

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Guruntum gùrdùŋ
Spoken in:	Nigeria
Total speakers:	15,000 (as of 1993)
Language family:	Afro-Asiatic  Chadic   West    B     B.3      Guruntum       Guruntum
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	afa
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	grd
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Guruntum is a Chadic language spoken by about 15,000 people (as of 1993) in Nigeria.

Contents 1 Classification 2 Phonology 2.1 Vowels 2.2 Consonants 2.3 Tone 3 References

[edit] Classification

Guruntum is a West Chadic language of the B subgroup.

Major dialects include Kuuku, Gayar, Mbaaru, Dooka, Gar and Karakara.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː	ɨ	u uː ũː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Low		a aː ãː

There are two diphthongs, /ai/ and /au/.

[edit] Consonants

		Labial			Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
		Plain	Palatalized	Labialized			Plain	Palatalized	Labialized
Stop	Voiceless	p	pʲ		t		k	kʲ	kʷ
	Voiced	b	bʲ		d	dʒ	ɡ	ɡʲ	ɡʷ
	Implosive	ɓ			ɗ
	Prenasalized	ᵐb			ⁿd	ⁿdʒ	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʲ	ᵑɡʷ
Fricative	Voiceless	f	fʲ	fʷ	s	ʃ
	Voiced	v		vʷ	z	ʒ
Nasal		m	mʲ	mʷ	n	nʲ	ŋ
Rhotic					r
Lateral					l
Semivowel						j			w

/r/ is realized as a flap intervocalically before back vowels; elsewhere it is a trill.

[edit] Tone

Guruntum has four tones: high, low, rising (low-high) and falling (high-low).

[edit] References

• Jaggar, Philip J. (1998). "Guruntum (gùrdùŋ) (West Chadic-B): Linguistics notes and wordlist". African Languages and Cultures 1 (2): 169–189.