Iraqw language

Iraqw is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Arusha and Manyara Regions. It is expanding in numbers, as the Iraqw people absorb neighboring ethnic groups. The language has a large number of Datooga loanwords, especially in poetic language. The Gorowa language to the south shares numerous similarities and is sometimes considered a dialect.

Phonology

Vowels

Whiteley (1958) lists the following vowel phonemes for Iraqw. All of the vowels except /ə/ occur in both short and long versions:

Consonants

Whiteley (1958) and Mous (1993) list the following consonants:

In the popular orthography for Iraqw used in Lutheran and Catholic materials, the sound ɬ is spelled ⟨sl⟩ and ʕ is spelled ⟨/⟩ (Mous 1993:16).

Morphology

Noun morphology

Gender

Nouns in Iraqw have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The gender of a noun can be deduced from the type of agreement that it triggers on other elements in the sentence, but the agreement system is unusual, and obeys the following principle (Mous 1993:41):

• Masculine nouns require the masculine form of the verb
• Feminine nouns require the feminine form of the verb
• Neuter nouns require the plural form of the verb

The masculine, feminine, and plural forms of the verb are identified by the form the verb takes when the subject is pronoun which is a.) a third person masculine singular ('he'), b.) a third person feminine singular ('she'), or c.) a third person plural ('they').

There are several unusual things that are worth noting. One is that 'tail' is neuter in the singular and feminine in the plural; despite this, the plural verb form is used for 'tail', since it is neuter, and neuters use the plural verb form. Another is that the verbs do not agree with their subjects in number, so the masculine plural daaqay 'boys' takes the masculine form of the verb, not the plural form of the verb.

Number

Nouns typically have separate singular and plural forms, but there are a large number of distinct plural suffixes. Mous (1993:44) reports that there are fourteen different plural suffixes. The lexical entry for a noun must specify the particular plural suffix it takes.

The gender of a plural noun is usually different than the gender of the corresponding singular. Compare the following singular and plural nouns, with their genders:

While it is not possible to predict the gender of a noun or which plural suffix it will take, the form of the plural suffix determines the gender of the plural noun. So, for example, all plural nouns with the /-eemo/ suffix are neuter (Mous 1993:58).

Construct case suffixes and gender linkers

The gender of a noun is important for predicting the construct case suffix and the gender linker that it will use. When a noun is directly followed by

• an adjective
• a possessive noun phrase
• a numeral
• a relative clause
• a verb

then a construct case suffix must appear after the noun. The construct case marker is /-ú/ or /-kú/ for masculine nouns; /-^Hr/ or /-tá/ for feminine nouns; and /-á/ for neuter nouns (Mous 1993:95-96):

The gender linkers are similar to the construct cases suffixes, but appear between the noun and other suffixes (such as the demonstrative, indefinite, and possessive suffixes). The following example shows masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns before the 'their' possessive suffix and the demonstrative -qá' 'that (far, but visible)' (Mous 1993:90-92)

Syntax

Noun phrases

The noun comes first in the noun phrase, and precedes possessors, adjectives, numerals, and relative clauses. An element called the construct case suffix appears between the noun and these modifiers, as discussed in the Morphology section above:

Sentences

An Iraqw sentence contains a verb in final position, and an auxiliary-like element called the 'selector'. Either the subject or the object of the sentence may precede the selector (Mous 2004:110), and the selector agrees with the preceding noun. So in the first example below, iri shows agreement with /ameenirdá' 'that woman', and in the second example, uná shows agreement with gitladá' :

References

• Mous, Maarten. 1993. A grammar of Iraqw. Hamburg: Buske.
• Mous, Maarten, Martha Qorro, Roland Kießling. 2002. Iraqw-English Dictionary. With an English and a Thesaurus Index. Cushitic Language Studies Volume 18.
• Whiteley, W.H. 1958. A short description of item categories in Iraqw. Kampala:East African Institute of Social Research.

External links

• Iraqw language topical vocabulary list (from the World Loanword Database)