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Chara language
Omotic language of Ethiopia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Chara (alternatively Ciara or C’ara) is an Afro-Asiatic language of the North Omotic variety spoken in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region of Ethiopia by 13,000 people.
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Status
Chara is geographically situated to the southeast of Nayi, west of Kullo, northeast of Mesketo, and northwest of Gofa.[3] Chara speakers live in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, in the Debub Omo Zone, on both sides of the Omo river.[4] Chara speakers are scattered in three villages in Ethiopia: Geba a meša, Buna Anta, and Kumba.[1] Native speakers may also speak Melo, Wolaytta (54% lexical similarity with Chara) to the east, and Kafa to the west.[4]
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Phonology
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Consonants
[p] and [f] are in free variation.[6] /ɗ/ only occurs in the word /jalɗa~jaltʼa/ 'crooked'.[5] Yilma (2002) found /ɓ/ to occur five times in around 550 lexical items.[6] He also found /ʑ/ occurring in two, both in the sequence /iʑa/.[6] Occurrence of /ɗ/ and /pʼ/ may be governed by dialectal variation.[6]
Vowels
/a/ is realized as [ə] in unstressed word-medial syllables.[7]
Length is minimally contrastive.[6] Minimal pairs include /mola/ 'fish', /moːla/ 'egg'; /masa/ 'to wash', /maːsa/ 'leopard'; /buna/ 'flower', /buːna/ 'coffee'.[6]
Suprasegmentals
Chara has phonemic stress.[7] Examples: /ˈbakʼa/ 'to slap', /baˈkʼa/ 'empty'; /ˈwoja/ 'to come', /woˈja/ 'wolf'.[7]
Morphophonemics
Morpheme-initial nasals assimilate point of articulation to that of the preceding consonant, usually found when verbs are suffixed with the singular imperative morpheme /-na/, e.g. /dub-na/ "to hit.imp" → [dubma] 'hit!'.[8]
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Grammar
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Morphology
Chara generally uses noun case suffixes and postpositions.[4]
Nouns are inflected for gender, number, definiteness, case, and possession.[9] These are all suffixes, except for the possessive.[9]
Gender pairs are usually lexical, except for a few with /-i/ in the masculine and /-a/ in the feminine.[9] Examples:[9]
- /mansa/ 'ox', /mija/ 'cow'
- /izi/ 'he', /iza/ 'she'
Nouns and adjectives inflect for plural with the suffix /-eːndi/.[9] Examples:[10]
- /ina/ 'mother', /ineːndi/ 'mothers'
- /dala/ 'while (sg.)', /daleːndi/ 'white (pl.)'
Definiteness in nouns is marked with the suffix /-naːzi/ (as an independent word meaning 'the male/man') for masculines and /-ena/ for feminines.[11] Adjectives take /-bi/ in the masculine and /-ena/ in the feminine.[11] Examples:[11]
- /mansa/ 'ox', /mansanaːzi/ 'the ox'
- /mija/ 'cow', /mijena/ 'the cow/
- /karta/ 'black', /kartabi/ 'the black (m.)', /kartena/ 'the black (f.)'
Nouns and adjectives may be marked for nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, ablative, instrumental, or vocative case.[12] The nominative suffix is /-i/, accusative /-(i)s/, dative /-(i)ri/, genitive /-e/, ablative /-kaj/, instrumental /-ne/, and vocative /-o/.[12]
Bound possessive pronouns: /ta-mija/ 'my cow', /ne-mija/ 'your cow', /iza-mija/ 'his cow'.[14]
Syntax
Chara is a subject–object–verb language.[4]
Adjectives end in /-a/ like nouns, and inflect for number, definiteness, plurality, and case.[15] In noun phrases adjectives precede their nouns, and are not inflected.[15]
Examples
Notes
References
External links
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