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Bak languages
Atlantic language group of West Africa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Bak languages are a group of typologically Atlantic languages of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau linked in 2010 to the erstwhile Atlantic isolate Bijago. Bak languages are non-tonal.
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Name
David Dalby coined the term Bak from the bVk- prefix found in the personal plural forms of demonstratives in the Bak languages. The -k- is not found in other Atlantic languages.[1]
Languages
- Bak languages
- Bak proper
- Balanta
-
- Jola languages (Diola)
- Papel languages (Manjaku)
- Bijago
- Bak proper
Classification of Bijago
Bijago is highly divergent. Sapir (1971) classified it as an isolate within West Atlantic.[2] However, Segerer (2010) showed that this is primarily due to unrecognized sound changes, and that Bijago is in fact close to the Bak languages.[3][4] For example, the following cognates in Bijago and Joola Kasa (one of the Jola languages) are completely regular, but had not previously been identified:
Segerer reconstructs the ancestral forms as *bu-gof and *di-gɛs, respectively, with the following developments:
- *bu-gof
- > *bu-kof > *bu-kow > fu-kow
- > *bu-ŋof > *bu-ŋo > (u-)bu
- *di-gɛs
- > *di-kis > *di-kil > ji-cil
- > *ne-ŋɛs > *ne-ŋɛ > nɛ
Comparative vocabulary
Summarize
Perspective
Comparison of basic vocabulary words of the Bak languages:[1]
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References
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