Gaam language

Gaam (Gaahmg), also known as Ingessana, (Me/Mun) Tabi, Kamanidi, or Mamedja/Mamidza, is an Eastern Sudanic language spoken by the Ingessana people in the Tabi Hills in Blue Nile State in eastern Sudan, near Ethiopia. It was considered an isolate within Eastern Sudanic until the other Eastern Jebel languages were discovered in the late 20th century. Dialects are Soda (Tao), Kukur (Gor), Kulang (Kulelek, Bau), Buwahg (Buek).

Gaam
Ingessana
Native to	Sudan
Region	Blue Nile State
Ethnicity	Ingessana
Native speakers	110,000 (2022)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic Southern Eastern Eastern Jebel Gaam
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tbi
Glottolog	gaam1241

An early record of this language is a short wordlist dated February 1883 by Juan Maria Schuver. His informant came from the east side of the Tabi Hills, but was hard to understand because he was chewing tobacco.^[2]

Phonology

Consonants

There are 21 distinct consonant phonemes. The fricative, nasal, lateral and rhotic consonants also distinguish length.

^[3]

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Plosives	p	b	t̪	d̪	t	d	c	ɟ	k	ɡ
Fricatives	f, fː				s, sː
Nasals		m, mː				n, nː		ɲ, ɲː		ŋ, ŋː
Laterals						l, lː
Rhotics						r, rː
Approximants		w				ð	y

Vowels

There are six distinct vowel phonemes. All six can also occur in sequential (and thus lengthened) form but may change phonetic quality. Stirtz (2012)^[4] proposes the following system:

	[-round]		[+round]
	[-back]	[+back]
[+ATR]	i	ə	u
[-ATR]	ɛ	a	ɔ

Tone

Gaam is a tonal language. There are three level tones, High, Mid and Low, which can be combined to form rising and falling tones. A total of nine tone melodies is possible, all of them contrastive.