Koyra Chiini language

Koyra Chiini
Native to Mali
Region Niger River
Native speakers
 200,000  (1999)[1]
Dialects
Djenné Chiini
Language codes
ISO 639-3 khq
Glottolog koyr1240[2]

Koyra Chiini ([kojra tʃiːni], figuratively "town language"), or Western Songhay, is a member of the Songhay languages spoken in Mali by about 200,000 people (in 1999) along the Niger River in Timbuktu and upriver from it in the towns of Diré, Tonka, Goundam, and Niafunké as well as in the Saharan town of Araouane to its north. In this area, Koyra Chiini is the dominant language and the lingua franca, although minorities speaking Hassaniya Arabic, Tamasheq, and Fulfulde are found. Djenné Chiini [dʒɛnːɛ tʃiːni], the dialect spoken in Djenné, is mutually comprehensible, but has noticeable differences - in particular, two extra vowels (/ɛ/ and /ɔ/) and syntactic differences related to focalization.

East of Timbuktu, Koyra Chiini gives way relatively abruptly to another Songhay language, Koyraboro Senni.

Unlike most Songhai languages, Koyra Chiini has no phonemic tones, and has subject–verb–object word order rather than subject–object–verb. It has changed original z to j.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Koyra Chiini at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Koyra Chiini Songhay". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ Heath, Jeffrey (1999). A grammar of Koyra Chiini : the Songhay of Timbuktu. Berlin ; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3110162851.