The Mina language, also known by the names Hina and Besleri, is a
Chadic language
The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger
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spoken in Northern Cameroon by 10,000 people. Speakers of Mina are generally bilingual, with
Fulfulde
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that st ...
(Fula) being the second language. Fulfulde is often joined by
French as a third language in educated speakers.
[
Besleri is spoken in most of ]Hina
Hina may refer to:
People and deities
* Hina (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Hina (chiefess), a name given to several noble ladies who lived in ancient Hawaii
* Hina (goddess), the name assigned to ...
commune (Mayo-Tsanaga
Mayo-Tsanaga is a department of Extreme-Nord Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of 4,393 km and at the 2005 Census had a total population of 699,971. The capital of the department is at Mokolo. It is located within the Man ...
Department, Far North Region), with Gamdugun and Jinjin in the southwest and southeast of the area, respectively.
Dialects
Frajzyngier & Johnston (2005) list three Mina dialects: Marbak, Kefedjevreng and Dzundzun. ''Ethnologue'' also lists three: Besleri, Jingjing (Dzumdzum), Gamdugun. While the correspondence of "Jingjing" and "Dzundzun" is clear, the identity of the others is not. Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
between dialects is difficult to ascertain, but Frajzyngier & Johnston (2005:3) demonstrate one-way intelligibility between Dzundzun and Mina (presumably meaning the Marbak dialect).
Notes
References
* Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Johnston, Eric. (2005). ''A Grammar of Mina.'' Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
* Newman, Paul. (1992). "Chadic Languages." In: Bright, William. ''International Encyclopedia of Linguistics.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Biu-Mandara languages
Languages of Cameroon
{{BiuMandara-lang-stub