dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
spoken in
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 ...
,
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesChad and
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
, as well as in small minorities in southern
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
At the turn of the 21st century, its two main dialects, Manga Kanuri and Yerwa Kanuri (also called Beriberi, which its speakers consider to be pejorative), were spoken by 9,700,000 people in
Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...
. It belongs to the Western Saharan subphylum of Nilo-Saharan. Kanuri is the language associated with the Kanem and Bornu empires that dominated the Lake Chad region for a thousand years.
The basic word order of Kanuri sentences is
subject–object–verb
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
. It is typologically unusual in simultaneously having
postposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s and post-nominal modifiers – for example, "Bintu's pot" would be expressed as ''nje Bintu-be'', "pot Bintu-of".
Kanuri has three tones: high, low, and falling. It has an extensive system of consonantal
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
; for example, "they" + "have eaten" → "they have eaten".
Traditionally a local lingua franca, its usage has declined in recent decades. Most first-language speakers speak
Hausa
Hausa may refer to:
* Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa
* Hausa language, spoken in West Africa
* Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states
* Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse
See also
...
or
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
as a second language.
Geographic distribution
Kanuri is spoken mainly in lowlands of the Chad Basin, with speakers in
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesNigeria
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 ...
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
.
Varieties
'' Ethnologue'' divides Kanuri into the following languages, while many linguists (e.g. Cyffer 1998) regard them as dialects of a single language. The first three are spoken by ethnic Kanuri and thought by them as dialects of their language.
* Central Kanuri
* Manga Kanuri
* Tumari Kanuri
* Bilma Kanuri (or Bilms)
* Kanembu
The variety attested in 17th century Qur'anic glosses is known as Old Kanembu. In the context of religious recitation and commentaries, a heavily archaizing descendant of this is still used, called Tarjumo.
Phonology
Consonants
* There may also exist prenasalized voiced stop consonant sounds /mb, nd, ŋɡ/, although it is not known whether they are considered phonemic.
* The sound /p/ occurs mainly as an allophone of /b/, when following another voiceless plosive. It also may be in free alteration with /f/, however; it is still represented in the standard Kanuri orthography.
* A voiceless fricative occurs as an allophone of /f/ when preceding back vowels /o, u/. A voiced fricative occurs as an allophone of /b/, when occurring in intervocalic positions. A voiced fricative occurs as an allophone of /ɡ/, when occurring intervocalically between central vowels.
* A retroflex lateral sound is heard when /l/ is followed by /i/.
* occurs as an allophone of /n/ when preceding velar stop consonants. Often, the stop sounds are deleted or misheard, so just the nasal sound is mainly heard.
Vowels
* is heard as an allophone of /ə/.
Written Kanuri
Kanuri has been written using the
Ajami
''Ajam'' ( ar, عجم, ʿajam) is an Arabic word meaning mute, which today refers to someone whose mother tongue is not Arabic. During the Arab conquest of Persia, the term became a racial pejorative. In many languages, including Persian, Tu ...
Arabic script, mainly in religious or court contexts, for at least four hundred years. More recently, it is also sometimes written in a modified
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. The Gospel of John published in 1965 was produced in Roman and Arabic script.
Alphabet
A standardized romanized orthography (known as the Standard Kanuri Orthography in Nigeria) was developed by the Kanuri Research Unit and the Kanuri Language Board. Its elaboration, based on the dialect of Maiduguri, was carried out by the Orthography Committee of the Kanuri Language Board, under the Chairmanship of Abba Sadiq, Waziri of Borno. It was officially approved by the Kanuri Language Board in
Maiduguri
Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the ''Firki'' swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maiduguri was founded in 1907 as a mil ...
, Nigeria, in 1975.
Letters used :
a b c d e ǝ f g h i j k l m n ny o p r
ɍ s sh t u w y z.
* Norbert Cyffer & John P. Hutchison (eds.) ''Dictionary of the Kanuri Language (Publications in African languages and linguistics, 13)''. Foris Publications 1990. .
* Norbert Cyffer, ''We Learn Kanuri'' (book and 2 audio cassettes), , Rüdiger Köppe Verlag: Köln 1993.
* Norbert Cyffer, ''English-Kanuri Dictionary'', , Rüdiger Köppe Verlag: Köln 1994.
* Norbert Cyffer, ''A Sketch of Kanuri''. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag: Köln 1998. Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: kau
References
Sources
* Barth, Heinrich 1854. Schreiben an Prof. Lepsius uber die Beziehung der Kanori- und Teda-Sprachen. ''Zeitschrift für Erdkunde'', 2: 372–74, 384–87.
* Bulakarima, S. Umara 1997. Survey of Kanuri dialects. in ''Advances in Kanuri Scholarship'', ed. N. Cyffer and T. Geider. Pp. 67–75. Cologne: Rudiger Koppe.
* Chonai, Hassan 1998. ''Gruppa teda-kanuri (centraľnosaxarskaja sem’ja jazykov) i ee genetičeskie vzaimootnošenija (ėtimologičeskij i fonologičeskij aspekt).'' Moskva: PhD. Dissertation (Rossijskij gosudarstvennyj gumanitarnyj universitet).
* Hutchison, John P. 1981. ''The Kanuri Language. A Reference Grammar''. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
* Koelle, Sigismund Wilhelm 1854. ''Grammar of the Bornu or Kanuri Language''. London: Church Missionary Society.
* Lange, Dierk 1972. Un vocabulaire kanuri de la fin du XVIIe siècle. '' Cahiers d'Études africaines'', 12(46): 277–290.
* Lukas, Johannes 1937. ''A Study of the Kanuri Language. Grammar and Vocabulary''. London: Oxford University Press.