Tera language
Tera | |
---|---|
Region | Nigeria |
Native speakers | 101,000 (2000)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Dialects |
Pidlimdi (Hinna)
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ttr |
Tera is a Chadic dialect cluster spoken in north-eastern Nigeria in the north and eastern parts of Gombe State and Borno State.[2] Blench (2006) believes Pidlimdi (Hinna) dialect is a separate language.[3]
Phonology
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 |
- Voiceless plosives are lightly aspirated but unreleased before another consonant.[5]
- /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.[5]
- /h/ is a relatively new phoneme, appearing in loanwords from English and Hausa.[5]
- /jˀ/ derives from a /ɗʲ/ that has lost its alveolar contact while retaining the palatal and glottal action.[5]
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.[6]
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.[7]
Diphthongs, which have the same length as long vowels, consist of a non-high vowel and a high vowel:[7]
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.[8]
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.[2]
References
Bibliography
- Tench, Paul (2007), "Tera", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37 (1): 228–234