Alagwa language
| Alagwa | |
|---|---|
| Alagwaisa | |
| Native to | Tanzania |
| Region | Dodoma |
| Ethnicity | Alagwa |
Native speakers | 53,000 (2009)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wbj |
| Glottolog | alag1248 |
| ELP | Lua error in Module:Endangered_Languages_Project at line 21: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
Alagwa (Alaagwa’isa) is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Dodoma region.[2] Some Alagwa have shifted to other languages such as Sandawe.
Phonology
[edit | edit source]Consonants
[edit | edit source]| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lateral | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | ||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | (c) | k | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ | ||
| voiced | b | d | (ɟ) | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||||||
| Affricate | tsʼ | tɬʼ | |||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ɬ | x | xʷ | ħ | h | |||
| voiced | ʕ | ||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | (ɲ) | ŋ | |||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||||||
- Sounds /c, ɟ, ɲ/ are considered rare, or mainly occur from loanwords.[3]
Vowels
[edit | edit source]Alagwa has five vowels /a, e, i, o, u/. The five vowels have contrastive long counterparts.[3][4]
Tone
[edit | edit source]There are two tone levels in Alagwa: low and high tone e.g., darimbáa "grass". Tone has grammatical function and limited lexical function. However, it cannot be described as a tone language because some words have only one tone (despite the number of the syllables) and the majority have none.[3]
Mainly, there are two intonation types: concluding intonation and non-concluding.[3]
Grammar
[edit | edit source]Word order
[edit | edit source]Alagwa sentences have a generalized order [Subject X Auxiliary Y Verb Z], and elements of the sentence other than the subject appear in the positions labelled X, Y, and Z, depending on their information status in the clause. New material tends to appear in the post-verbal position, Z, while old information appears in the pre-auxiliary position, X.
The following example (Kiessling 2007:138) shows the noun yaawáa 'dowry' introduced as new information after the verb in the first sentence and repeated as old information before the auxiliary ningi in the second sentence.
makimoo-w-ód,
guy-M-D
ning-aa
SEQ:S3-ABL
xay-ee’
come:3-PF.PL
ningi
SEQ:S3
bu’-i-yee’
pay-3-PF.PL
yaawáa
dowry
'that guy, they [i.e. the lions] came and paid the dowry.'
maa
so
dende’ee-w-ós
folks-N-3SG.POSS
yaawáa
dowry
ningi
SEQ:O3PL
bu’-i-yee’
pay-3-PF.PL
'His folks paid the dowry.'
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Alagwa at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
- ^ Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
Bibliography
[edit | edit source]- Kiesling, Roland. 2007. Alagwa functional sentence perspective and "incorporation". Omotic and Cushitic Language Studies. Papers from the Fourth Cushitic Omotic Conference, Leiden, 10–12 April 2003. Edited by Azeb Amha, Maarten Mous, Graziano Savà. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
- Maghway, Josephat B. 2008. Alaagwa'isa Phonology. In Occasional papers in linguistics (OPiL), Vol. 3, 82–96
- Mous, Maarten. 2001. Alagwa basic syntax. In New data and new methods in Afroasiatic linguistics. Zaborski, Andrzej (ed.), 125–135. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
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