Tegem, also Jebel Tekeim, is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Kordofan, Sudan. It is sometimes considered a dialect of Lafofa, which is poorly attested.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | c | k | |||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɟ | ɡ | |||||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd̪ | ᶯɖ | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Rhotic | r | ɽ | |||||||
| Sonorant | w | l | ɫ | j | h | ||||
- Labialization [ʷ] is also said to occur among sounds.
- The following sounds can occur as geminated, [bː, mː, t̪ː, d̪ː, rː, lː, ɫː, ʈː, cː, ɟː, kː].[2]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | ||
| ɪ | ʊ | |||
| Close-mid | e | o | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ʌ | ɔ | |
| Open | æ | a | ɑ | |
- Vowel length is also distinctive.
References
- ^ Tegem at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Sosal Altayeb Mohammed Ali, Ahmed (2018). A Phonological Study of the Tegem Language. University of Cape Town.
Sources
- Roger Blench, 2011 (ms), "Does Kordofanian constitute a group and if not, where does its languages fit into Niger-Congo?"[1]
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This page was last edited on 17 March 2023, at 18:58