| Guruntum | |
|---|---|
| Guruntum-Mbaaru | |
| gùrdùŋ | |
| Region | Nigeria |
Native speakers | (15,000 cited 1993)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | grd |
| Glottolog | guru1271 |
| ELP | Guruntum |
Guruntum is a Chadic language spoken in Bauchi and Alkaleri LGAs, Bauchi State, Nigeria. In 1993 it was spoken by about 15,000 people.
Classification
[edit]Guruntum is a West Chadic language of the Barawa (B.3) group.
Major dialects include Kuuku, Gayar, Mbaaru, Dooka, Gar and Karakara.
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]Guruntum contrasts long and short forms for all vowels except for /ɨ/. In addition, two nasalized vowel phonemes exist: /ũː/ /ãː/.
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | i | iː | ɨ | u | uː ũː | |
| Mid | e | eː | o | oː | ||
| Open | a | aː ãː | ||||
There are two diphthongs, /ai/ and /au/.
Consonants
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar or palatal |
Velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Palatalized | Labialized | Plain | Palatalized | Labialized | ||||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | mʷ | n | nʲ | ŋ | |||
| Stop | prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮdʒ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʲ | ᵑɡʷ | ||
| voiceless | p | pʲ | t | k | kʲ | kʷ | |||
| voiced | b | bʲ | d | dʒ | ɡ | ɡʲ | ɡʷ | ||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | fʲ | fʷ | s | ʃ | |||
| voiced | v | vʷ | z | ʒ | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||||
/r/ is realized as a flap intervocalically before back vowels; elsewhere it is a trill.
Tone
[edit]Guruntum has four tones: high, low, rising (low-high) and falling (high-low).
References
[edit]- ^ Guruntum at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- Jaggar, Philip J. (1998). "Guruntum (gùrdùŋ) (West Chadic-B): Linguistics notes and wordlist". African Languages and Cultures. 1 (2): 169–189. doi:10.1080/09544168808717689.
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