Day language
| Day | |
|---|---|
| Native to | southern Chad |
Native speakers | (50,000 cited 1993 census)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dai |
| Glottolog | dayy1236 |
Day (also spelled Daye) is an Adamawa language of southern Chad, spoken by 50,000 or so people southeast of Sarh. Ethnologue reports that its dialects are mutually intelligible, but Blench (2004) lists Ndanga, Njira, Yani, Takawa as apparently separate languages.
Pierre Nougayrol's publications and field notes of Day from the 1970s constitute almost all of the available materials on the Day language.[2][3][4]
Güldemann (2018) notes that Day has few morphological and lexical features that are typical of Niger-Congo, and hence cannot be classified with certainty.[5]
Phonology
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p b | t d | ɟ | k g | ʔ |
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||
| Prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑg | |
| Fricative | v | s | h | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Approximant | w | r l | j |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid-high | e eː ẽ ẽː | ə̃ ə̃ː | o oː õ õː |
| Mid-low | ɔ ɔː | ||
| Low | a aː |
There are three tones: high, low, and mid.[2]
Lexicon
[edit]Some fish names in Day:[3]
| Day (Bouna) | Scientific name |
|---|---|
| gàgà | Chrysichthys auratus |
| jí yēē | Hepsetus odoe |
| gūrú | Heterobranchus bidorsalis |
| bɔ́gɔ̀ | Heterotis niloticus |
| sɔ̄rɔ̄ŋ | Ophiocephalus obscurus |
| jīɲ | Protopterus annectens |
| kɔ̀tɔ̀kúnɔ̀ | Tetraodon fahaka |
Other animal names:
- kòŋní ʔólò (Pila wernei), a gastropod
Plant names in Day:[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Day at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ a b c d Nougayrol, Pierre. 1979. Le day de Bouna (Tchad), I: phonologie, syntagmatique nominale, synthématique. (Bibl. de la SELAF (Société des Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France), 71-72.) Paris: Paris. 174pp.
- ^ a b c Nougayrol, Pierre. 1980. Le Day de Bouna (Tchad), II: Lexique Day-Français, Index Français-Day. (Société d'Études Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France, 77-78.) Paris: Centre National de la Récherche Sciéntifique. 176pp.
- ^ Nougayrol, P. 1977. Éléments de phonologie du day de Bouna. In Caprile, J.-P. (ed.), Études phonologiques tchadiennes, 213-231. Paris: SELAF.
- ^ Güldemann, Tom (2018). "Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa". In Güldemann, Tom (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. The World of Linguistics series. Vol. 11. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 58–444. doi:10.1515/9783110421668-002. ISBN 978-3-11-042606-9.
- Roger Blench, 2004. List of Adamawa languages (ms)
