Tera language

Tera
Spoken in Nigeria
Native speakers 101,000  (2000)
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ttr
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Tera is a Chadic language spoken in north-eastern Nigeria in the north and eastern parts of Gombe State and Borno State.[1]

Contents

Phonology

Consonants[2]
Labial Alveolar Palatal or
postalveolar		 Velar Glottal
Plain Palatalized Central Lateral Plain Labialized
Nasal m mʲ n ɲ ŋ
Stop Voiceless1 p t2 tʃ2 k kʷ
Voiced b d2 dʒ2 ɡ ɡʷ
Prenasalized ᵐb ⁿd ᶮdʒ ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ
Implosive ɓ ɓʲ ɗ ɠ
Fricative Voiceless f s ɬ ʃ x xʷ h3
Voiced v vʲ z ɮ ʒ ɣ ɣʷ
Trill r
Approximant Plain l j w
Glottalized jˀ4
  1. Voiceless plosives are lightly aspirated but unreleased before another consonant.[3]
  2. /t/ and /d/ formally had /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively as allophones but the two pairs have split; however, the alveolar plosives never precede front vowels and the postalveolar affricates rarely precede anything but front vowels.[3]
  3. /h/ is a relatively new phoneme, appearing in loanwords from English and Hausa.[3]
  4. /jˀ/ derives from a /ɗʲ/ that has lost its alveolar contact while retaining the palatal and glottal action.[3]
Vowels[4]
Front Central Back
High i iː ɨ u uː
Mid e eː o oː
Low a aː

Vowel length contrasts are neutralized in monosyllabic words with no coda consonants.[4]

All vowels but /a/ and /aː/ are more open in closed syllables such as in [ɮɛp] ('to plait') and [xʊ́r] ('to cook soup'). /a/ and /aː/ are more open when following palatalized consonants.[5]

Diphthongs, which have the same length as long vowels, consist of a non-high vowel and a high vowel:[5]

Diphthong Example Orthography Gloss
/eu/ /ɓeu/ ɓeu 'sour'
/au/ /ɮàu/ dlau 'sickle'
/ai/ /ɣài/ ghai 'town'
/oi/ /woi/ woi 'child'

Tone

Tera is a tonal language, distinguishing high, mid and low tone. Tone is not indicated orthographically since no minimal trios exist; minimal pairs can be distinguished by context.[6]

Orthography

The first publication in Tera was Labar Mbarkandu nu Yohanna Bula Ki, a translation of the Gospel of John, which established an orthographic system. In 2004, this orthographic system was revised.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b Tench (2007:227)
  2. ^ Tench (2007:228)
  3. ^ a b c d Tench (2007:229)
  4. ^ a b Tench (2007:230)
  5. ^ a b Tench (2007:231)
  6. ^ Tench (2007:232)

Bibliography

External links