| Bench | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bentʂnon | ||||
| Spoken in | Ethiopia | |||
| Region | Bench Maji Zone, SNNPR | |||
| Native speakers |
347,636 of Bench dialect 8,159 of Mer dialect 492 of She dialect[1] (date missing) |
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| Language family |
Afro-Asiatic
|
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | bcq | |||
| Linguasphere | 16-BBA-a | |||
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Bench (also called Gimira, considered a derogatory term) is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people (as of 1998) in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira. It has three mutually intelligible dialects: Bench proper, She, and Mer.[2] In unusual variance from most of the other languages in Africa, Bench has retroflex consonant phonemes.[3] The language is also noteworthy in that it has six phonemic tones, one of only a handful of languages in the world that have this many.[4]
Contents |
The phonemic vowels of Bench are /i e a o u/
There are six phonemic tones: five level tones (numbered 1 to 5 in the literature, with 1 being the lowest) and one rising tone 23 /˨˧/. The top tone is sometimes realized as a high rising 45 [˦˥].[5] On the vowel o, they are /ő ó ō ò ȍ ǒ/
The consonants are:
| Bilabial | Coronal | Palato- alveolar |
Retroflex | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | ||
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
| Ejective | pʼ | tʼ | kʼ | ||||
| Affricate | Voiceless | ts | tʃ | tʂ | |||
| Ejective | tsʼ | tʃʼ | tʂʼ | ||||
| Fricative | Voiceless | s | ʃ | ʂ | h | ||
| Voiced | z | ʒ | ʐ | ||||
| Rhotic | r | ||||||
| Approximant | l | j | |||||
All of these can occur palatalized, but only before /a/, suggesting an alternate analysis of a sixth phonemic vowel /ja/. Labialized consonants are reported for p, b, s, ɡ, and ʔ, but their phonemic status is unclear; they only occur after /i/.
For the phoneme /p/ the realizations of [pʰ] and [f] are in free variation; /j/ has the allophone [w] before back vowels.
The syllable structure is (C)V(C)(C)(C) + tone or (C) N (C), where C represents any consonant, V any vowel, N any nasal, and brackets an optional element. CC clusters consist of a continuant followed by a plosive, fricative, or affricate; in CCC clusters, the first consonant must be one of /r/ /j/ /m/ /p/ or /pʼ/, the second either /n/ or a voiceless fricative, and the third /t/ or /k/.
Plurals may optionally be formed by adding the suffix -n̄d; however, these are rarely used except with definite nouns. E.g.: wű īnɡn̄d "her relatives"; ātsn̄dī bá ka̋nɡ "all the people".
| English | oblique | subject | locative | vocative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | tá | tān | tȁtʼn̄ | |
| you (sg.) | ní | nēn | nȉtʼn̄ | wȍ (m.), hȁ (f.) |
| you (hon.) | jìnt | jìnt | jìnt | |
| he | jı̋ | jīs | _ | |
| he (hon.) | ı̋ts | ı̋ts | ı̋ts | |
| she | wű | wūs | _ | |
| she (hon.) | ɡēn | ɡēn | ɡēn | |
| himself/herself | bá | bān | bȁtʼn̄ | |
| we (excl.) | nú | nūn | nȕtʼn̄ | |
| we (incl.) | nı̋ | nīn | nȉtʼn̄ | |
| you (pl.) | jìntȁjkʼn̄ | jìntȁjkʼn̄ | jìntȁjkʼn̄ | |
| they | ı̋tsȁjkʼn̄ | ı̋tsȁjkʼn̄ | ı̋tsȁjkʼn̄ |
Bá goes slightly beyond being a reflexive pronoun; it can mark any third person that refers to the subject of the sentence, e.g.:
| jȉsī | bá | dōr | ɡȍtùē |
| he.S | own | sheep | sell.he.Fin |
| bȍdám | hānkʼá | bājístāɡùʂn̄ | pāntsʼà | ěz | |
| road.abl | go.self | self.be.stat.det.when | leopard-NPMk | big | see.he.Fin |
The oblique form is basic, and serves as object, possessive, and adverbial. The subject form has three variants: normal (given above), emphatic - used when the subject is particularly prominent in the sentence, especially sentence-initially - and reduced, used as part of a verb phrase. The "locative" term means "to, at, or for one's own place or house", e.g.:
| kȁrtá | tȁtʼn̄ | tā | hānkʼùē |
| return.I | to.my.house | I | go.I.Fin |
The main determiners are "that, the" (masc. ùʂ, fem. èn, pl. ènd) and "this" (masc. hàʂ, fem. hàn, pl. hànd). As suffixes on a verb or an ablative or locative phrase, they indicate a relative clause. E.g.:
| átsín | kétn̋ | jískèn |
| woman | house.loc | be.that |
"the woman who is in the house"
The demonstratives include hánɡ "here", ēk "there (nearby)", jìnk "there (far away)", nēɡ "down there", nèk "up there". Alone, or with the determiner suffixes ùʂ or àʂ added, these function as demonstrative pronouns "this person", "that person", etc. With the noun phrase marker -à, they become demonstrative adjectives. E.g.:
The numbers are:
| 1 | mātʼ |
| 2 | nám |
| 3 | káz |
| 4 | ód |
| 5 | ùtʂ |
| 6 | sàpm̄ |
| 7 | nàpm̄ |
| 8 | nyàrtn̄ |
| 9 | ìrstn̄ |
| 10 | ta̋m |
| 100 | bǎl |
| 1000 | wňm |
20, 30, etc. are formed by adding tàm "ten" (with tone change) to the unit. In compound numbers, -á is added to each 'figure, thus:
When a cardinal number functions as an adjective, the suffix -ās can be added (eg njāʔà kázās "three children".) Ordinal numbers are formed by suffixing -nás to the cardinal, e.g.: ódnás "fourth".
Adjectives are sometimes intensified by changing the tone to top; e.g. ěz "big" → e̋z "very big".
Verbs with monosyllabic roots can have three different forms of their active stems: the singular imperative, which is just the root; the past stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by adding -k (with changes to the preceding consonant); and the future stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by changing the tone from mid 3 to high 4 or from bottom 1 to top 5. Some have causative (formed by adding -ās or -̏s, and changing mid tone to high) and passive (formed by adding -n̄, -t, or -̏k to the causative) forms. Verbal nouns are formed from the stem, sometimes with tone change or addition or -t.
Verbs with polysyllabic roots have at least two forms, one with an intransitive or passive meaning and one with a transitive or causative meaning; the former ends in -n̄, the latter in -ās. A passive may be formed by ending in -āsn̄. Verbal nouns are formed by taking the bare stem without -n̄ or -ās.
Compound verbs are formed with màk "say" or màs "cause to say", a formation common among Ethiopian languages.
The primary tenses are simple past (formed from the past stem), future (future stem plus -n̄s-), present perfect (from present participle stem); negative (future stem plus -árɡ-.) E.g.: hām → hānkʼùē "he went"; hámsm̄sùē "he will go"; hānkʼńsùē "he has gone".
There are four corresponding participles: past (formed from the past stem), present perfect (formed from the past stem with the suffix -ńs-, -ńɡ, or -ánkʼ-), imperfect (formed from the future stem with the stative suffix -āɡ-), and negative (formed from the future stem with the negative suffix -árɡ- or -ù- or a person/number marker.) The order of affixes is: root-(tense)-(negative)-(foc. pn.)-person/number-marker.
The New Testament has been published in the Bench language, using an orthography based on the Ethiopian syllabary. Tones are not indicated. Retroflex consonants are indicated by such techniques as using extra symbols from the syllabary (the "nigus s") and forming new symbols, (the addition of an extra arm on the left side for "t").