| Blin | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ብሊና | ||||
| Spoken in | central Eritrea | |||
| Native speakers | 70,000 (date missing) | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-2 | byn | |||
| ISO 639-3 | byn | |||
|
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The Blin language (ብሊና, translitterated to Latin as b(ə)lina or bɨlina), Bilin or Bilen has approximately 70,000 speakers in and around the city of Keren in Eritrea. It is the only Central Cushitic language which is spoken in Eritrea.
"Blin" is the English spelling which is preferred by native speakers, but Bilin and Bilen (ቢለን) are also commonly used. Bilin is the reference name arbitrarily used in the current initial English editions of ISO 639-3, but Blin is also listed as an equivalent name without preference. In the English list of ISO 639-2, Blin (the native spelling) is listed in first position in both English and French lists, when Bilin is just listed as an alternate name in the English list, and Bilen is the alternate name in the French list. The Ethnologue report lists Bilen as the preferred name, but also lists Bogo, Bogos, Bilayn, Bilin, Balen, Beleni, Belen, Bilein, Bileno, North Agaw as alternate names.
Contents |
It is not clear if Bilin has tone. It may have pitch accent (Fallon 2004), as prominent syllables always have high tone, but not all words have such a syllable.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
Note: /tʃ/ is found in loans and the status of /ʔ/ as a phoneme is uncertain.
/r/ is typically realised as a tap when it is medial and a trill when it is in final position.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Postalveolar or palatal |
Velar | Pharyn- geal |
Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labialized | ||||||||
| Plosive / Affricate |
voiceless | t | (tʃ) | k | kʷ | (ʔ) | |||
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||||
| ejective | tʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | kʷʼ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | x | xʷ | ħ | h | |
| voiced | z | ʕ | |||||||
| Rhotic | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | central | j | w | ||||||
| lateral | l | ||||||||
Fallon (2001, 2004) notes intervocalic lenition, such as /b/ → [β]; syncope, as in the name of the language, /bɨlín/ → [blín]; debuccalization with secondary articulation preserved, as in /dérekʷʼa → [dɛ́rɛʔʷa] 'mud for bricks'. Intriguingly, the ejectives have voiced allophones, which according to Fallon (2004) "provides an important empirical precedent" for one of the more criticized aspects of the glottalic theory of Indo-European. For example,
| Ejective consonant | Voiced allophone | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| /laħátʃʼɨna/ | [laħádʒɨna] | 'to bark' |
| /kʼaratʃʼna/ | [kʼaradʒna] | 'to cut' |
| /kʷʼakʷʼito/ | [ɡʷaʔʷito] | 'he was afraid' |
See also: Ge'ez alphabet#Modifications for other languages
A writing system for Blin was first developed by missionaries who used the Ge'ez abugida and the first text was published in 1882. Although the Ge'ez script is usually used for Semitic languages, the phonemes of Blin are very similar. (7 vowels, labiovelar and ejective consonants.) The script therefore only requires a slight modification (the addition of consonants for ŋ and ŋʷ) to make it suitable for Blin. Some of the additional symbols required to write Blin with this script are in the "Ethiopic Extended" Unicode range rather than the "Ethiopic" range.
The basic signs, in order, are as follows. Note that there are some differences between the list order in Blin and the standard Ge'ez list order.
| Sound | /h/ | /l/ | /ħ/ | /m/ | /s/ | /ʃ/ | /r/ | /kʼ/ | /b/ | /t/ | /n/ | /ʔ/ | /k/ | /x/ | /w/ | /ʕ/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ge'ez | ሀ | ለ | ሐ | መ | ሰ | ሸ | ረ | ቀ | በ | ተ | ነ | አ | ከ | ኸ | ወ | ዐ |
| Sound | /j/ | /d/ | /dʒ/ | /ɡ/ | /ŋ/ | /tʼ/ | /tʃʼ/ | /f/ | /z/ | /t͡ʃ/ | /v/ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ge'ez | የ | ደ | ጀ | ገ | ጘ | ጠ | ጨ | ፈ | ዘ | ቸ | ቨ |
Blin also needs 5 labiovelar variants:
| Sound | /kʷʼ/ | /kʷ/ | /xʷ/ | /ɡʷ/ | /ŋʷ/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ge'ez | ቈ | ኰ | ዀ | ጐ | ⶓ |
In 1985 the Eritrean People's Liberation Front decided to use the Latin alphabet for Blin and all other non-Semitic languages in Eritrea. This was largely a political decision: the Ge'ez script is associated with Christianity because of its liturgical use. The Latin alphabet is seen as being more neutral. In 1993 the government set up a committee to standardize the Blin language and the Latin-based orthography. (Fallon, Blin Orthography[1])
As of 1997, the alphabetic order was:
Also khw.
Their values are similar to the IPA apart from the following:
| Letter | Value |
|---|---|
| é | ɨ |
| c | ʕ |
| j | dʒ |
| q | kʼ |
| x | ħ |
| y | j |
| ñ | ŋ |
| th | tʼ |
| ch | tʃʼ |
| sh | ʃ |
| kh | x |