Gokana (Gòkánà) is an
Ogoni language spoken by some 130,000 people in
Rivers State
Rivers State, also known as Rivers, is a state in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria (Old Eastern Region). Formed in 1967, when it was split from the former Eastern Region, Rivers State borders include: Imo to the north, Abia and Akwa ...
,
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
.
Phonology
Gokana has been argued to lack
syllables, a radical claim because syllables are traditionally considered to be
universal
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. According to Hyman (1983), Gokana "does not organise its consonants and vowels into syllables." Hyman later amended his claim to say that "the syllable plays at best a minor role in the
prosodic
In linguistics, prosody () is concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, st ...
organisation of Gokana" and is perhaps not activated to express any generalisations in the language.
Writing system
Nasal vowels
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced witho ...
are indicated by a tilde and Tone (linguistics), tones are indicated by an acute or grave accent:
* The high tone is indicated by an acute accent : á, ã́, é, ẹ́, ẽ́, í, ĩ́, ó, ọ́, ṍ, ú, ṹ, ḿ ;
* The low tone is indicated by a grave accent : à, ã̀, è, ẹ̀, ẽ̀, ì, ĩ̀, ò, ọ̀, õ̀, ù, ũ̀, m̀ ;
* The middle tone is indicated with no diacritic.
References
"A global linguistic database:Gokana" Tower of Babel Project*Brosnahan, L. F. (1964)
Outlines of the Phonology of the Gokana Dialect of Ogoni ''Journal of West African Languages'' 1(1): pp. 43–48
*Brosnahan, L. F. (1967) "A Word List of the Gokana Dialect of Ogoni" ''Journal of West African Languages'' 4(2): pp. 43–52
*
Hyman, Larry M. and
Comrie, B. (1981) "Logophoric Reference in Gokana" ''Journal of African Languages and Linguistics'' (Leiden) 3(1): pp. 19–37
*Hyman, Larry M. (1982) "The representation of nasality in Gokana" ''In'' Hulst, Harry, van der and Smith, Norval (eds.) (1982) ''The Structure of Phonological Representations'' part, 1 Foris Publishing, Dordrecht, Holland,
*Yan Huang (2003)
Switch-reference in Amele and logophoric verbal suffix in Gokana: a generalized neo-Gricean pragmatic analysis ''In'' Georgiafentis, M.; Haeberli, E, and Varlokosta, S. (eds.) (2003) ''Reading Working Papers in Linguistics'' Volume 7, pp. 53–76, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, University of Reading, Reading, UK
*Bond, Oliver and Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2005) "Divergent Structure in Ogonoid Languages" ''In'' (2005) ''Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society'' Volume 31, Berkeley Linguistic Society, Berkeley, California
Indigenous languages of Rivers State
Ogoni languages
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