Mpade language

Mpadə
Native to Cameroon, Chad
Region Far North Province, Cameroon; west Chad
Native speakers
16,000 in Cameroon (2004)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mpi
Glottolog mpad1242  (Mpade)[2]
ngal1301  (Ngala)[3]

Mpadə is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and southwestern Chad. Dialects are Bodo, Digam, Mpade (Makari), Shoe (Shewe), and Woulki.[4]

The language is sometimes known as Makari, after one of the towns where it is spoken. Ngala further west (as described by Barth) once spoke a dialect similar to Makari, but it was moribund by the 1920s, the people having shifted to Kanuri.

Phonology

Consonants

Mpade has the following consonants.[5]

Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Glottal
Plain Labialized
Stops and
affricates
Voiceless p t k
Voiced b d ɡ ɡʷ
Ejective tsʼ tʃʼ kʷʼ
Implosive ɓ ɗ
Prenasalized mb nd ŋɡ
Fricatives Voiceless f s ʃ h
Voiced z
Nasals m n
Lateral l
Trill r
Semivowels j w

Vowels

Mpade has the following vowels.[5]

front back
unrounded
back
rounded
High i h u
Non-High e ɡ o

Notes

  1. Mpadə at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mpade". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Ngala". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  4. Frawley, William J., ed. (2003). "Mpade". International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. p. 238.
  5. 1 2 Allison 2006.

References

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