Laal is an endangered

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

spoken by 749 people () in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

on opposite banks of the

Chari River The Chari River, or Shari River, is a long river, flowing in Central Africa. It is Lake Chad's main source of water. Geography The Chari River flows from the Central African Republic through Chad into Lake Chad, following the Cameroon border f ...

, called Gori (''lá''), Damtar (''ɓual''), and Mailao. It represents an isolated survival of an earlier language group of

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 is unwritten except in

transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...

by linguists. According to former

Summer Institute of Linguistics SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...

-Chad member David Faris, it is in danger of extinction, with most people under 25 shifting to the locally more widespread Bagirmi. This language first came to the attention of academic linguists in 1977 through Pascal Boyeldieu's fieldwork in 1975 and 1978. His fieldwork was based, for the most part, on a single speaker, Djouam Kadi of Damtar.

Speakers and status

The language's speakers are mainly

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

fishermen A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or recreat ...

and

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

s, who also sell

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

extracted from the ashes of

doum palm ''Hyphaene thebaica'', with common names doum palm (Ar: دوم) and gingerbread tree (also mistakenly doom palm), is a type of palm tree with edible oval fruit. It is a native to the Arabian Peninsula and also to the northern half and western pa ...

s and ''

Vossia cuspidata ''Vossia'' is a monotypic genus in the grass family, found in Asia and Africa. The only known species is ''Vossia cuspidata'', an aquatic grass native to Africa (from Senegal to Egypt, Somalia, south to Namibia), and to Assam, Bangladesh, and ...

''. Like their neighbours, the

Niellim The Niellim language (autonym ''lwaà'') is a Bua language spoken by some 5,000 people (as of 1993) along the Chari River in southern Chad. It is mainly spoken in two areas: one around the city of Sarh (to which many - perhaps most - speakers ha ...

, they were formerly cattle herders but lost their herds around the turn of the 19th century. They are mainly

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

s, but until the latter half of the 20th century, they followed the traditional '' Yondo'' religion of the

. The area is fairly undeveloped; while there are

Qur'anic school The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sin ...

s in Gori and Damtar, the nearest government school is 7 km away, and there is no medical dispensary in the region (). The village of Damtar formerly had a distinct dialect, called Laabe (''la:bé''), with two or three speakers remaining in 1977; it was replaced by the dialect of Gori after two Gori families fled there at the end of the 19th century to escape a

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

. No other dialects of Laal are known. Under Chadian law, Laal, like all languages of Chad other than French and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, 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 ...

, is regarded as a

national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...

. Although the 1996 Constitution stipulates that "the law shall fix the conditions of promotion and development of national languages", national languages are not used for education, for official purposes, or usually for written media, but some of the larger ones (but not Laal) are used on the radio.

Classification

Laal remains

unclassified Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...

, although extensive Adamawa (specifically Bua) and to a lesser extent

Chadic 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, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...

influence is found. It is sometimes grouped with one of those two

language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...

, and sometimes seen as a

. Boyeldieu (1982) summarizes his view as "Its classification remains problematic; while it shows certain lexical, and no doubt morphological, traits with the Bua languages (Adamawa-13, Niger–Congo family of

Joseph H. Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...

), it differs from them radically in many ways of which some, ''a priori'', make one think of geographically nearby Chadic languages."

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and works ...

(2003), similarly, considers that "its vocabulary and morphology seem to be partly drawn from Chadic (i.e.

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

), partly from Adamawa (i.e. Niger–Congo) and partly from an unknown source, perhaps its original phylum, a now-vanished grouping from

." It is the last possibility which attracts particular interest; if this proves true, Laal may be the only remaining window on the linguistic state of Central Africa before the expansion of the main

African language The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families: * Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern A ...

families—Afro-Asiatic,

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...

, and Niger–Congo—into it. Their immediate neighbors speak Bua,

, and Ndam. Laal contains a number of

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

s from Baguirmi, which for several centuries was the lingua franca of the region under the Baguirmi Empire, and perhaps a dozen Chadic roots, which are not similar to the Chadic languages that currently neighbor Laal. In addition, almost all Laal speak Niellim as a second language, and 20%–30% of their vocabulary is cognate with Niellim, especially agricultural vocabulary (Boyeldieu 1977, Lionnet 2010). Like the Baguirmi, the Laal are

s; partly because of this, some

loanwords are also found. However some 60% of the vocabulary, including most core vocabulary, cannot be identified with any known language family (Lionnet 2010). Indeed, some of the words cognate with Niellim, including some basic vocabulary, is not cognate with closely related Bua, suggesting that these are not Adamawa roots but loans in Niellim from the Laal substrate (Lionnet 2010). Pozdniakov (2010) believes Laal is a distinct branch of Niger–Congo with part of its pronominal system borrowed from a Chadic language like Kera. Alternatively, it may be a language descending from a language of a group of Neolithic Near Eastern farmers who immigrated to Chad, since recent genetic studies have found that the Laal people have significant Eurasian admixture similar to

Natufian The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction ...

s and Neolithic Levantines. Laal is grouped with the

Chadic languages 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, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...

in an automated computational analysis (

ASJP The Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) is a collaborative project applying computational approaches to comparative linguistics using a database of word lists. The database is open access and consists of 40-item basic-vocabulary lists ...

4) by Müller et al. (2013), suggesting early contact with Chadic.Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013.
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'.

Phonology

The sounds of Laal are transcribed here using

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

symbols.

Consonants

Implosives and prenasalised stops as well as h are found only word-initially. Voiceless stops as well as s cannot occur at the end of a syllable. occurs only intervocalically and word-finally. appears exclusively in

s and certain numbers. Prenasalized stops as well as the implosive are extremely rare.

Vowels

The vowel system for non-initial syllables is and the

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...

, with no length distinction. For initial syllables, however, it is much more complicated, allowing length distinctions and distinguishing the following additional diphthongs: (but the latter two appear only as morphologically conditioned forms of and and so are perhaps better seen as allophonic). In addition, may occur very occasionally; Boyeldieu quotes the example of ''mỳlùg'' "red (pl.)". There are three level tones: high (á), middle (a), low (à). Combinations mau occur on a single vowel, resulting in phonetic rising and falling tone, and which are phonemically sequences of level tones. Such cases are transcribed here by repeating the vowel (e.g. àá); long vowels are indicated only by a colon (e.g. a:). Suffixes may force any of four kinds of

ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German ''Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...

on the vowels of preceding words: raising (takes to ), lowering (takes to ), low rounding (takes and to ; and to ; , and to ), and high rounding (takes and to ; and to ; , and to ). They are transcribed in the suffix section as ↑, ↓, ↗, ↘ respectively. In some verbs, a/ə is "raised" to rather than, as expected, to . In suffixes, ə and o undergo

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...

: they become and u respectively if the preceding vowel is one of . Likewise, r undergoes consonant harmony, becoming l after words containing l. Suffixes with a neutral tone copy the final tone of the word to which they are suffixe

Morphology

Syntax

The typical

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

can be summarised as subject–(verbal

particle In the Outline of physical science, physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small wikt:local, localized physical body, object which can be described by several physical property, physical or chemical property, chemical ...

)–

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

–

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

–

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...

;

preposition 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 ...

–

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

; possessed–possessor;

–

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...

. Nouns can be fronted when

topic Topic, topics, TOPIC, topical, or topicality may refer to: Topic / Topics * Topić, a Slavic surname * ''Topics'' (Aristotle), a work by Aristotle * Topic (chocolate bar), a brand of confectionery bar * Topic (DJ), German musician * Topic (g ...

alized. See the sample sentences below for examples and the conjunctions for clause syntax.

Nouns

Nouns have plural and singular forms (the latter are perhaps better viewed as

singulative In linguistics, singulative number and collective number (abbreviated and ) are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the unmarked form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item. This is the ...

in some cases), with plural formation hard to predict: ''kò:g'' "bone" > ''kuagmi'' "bones", ''tuà:r'' "chicken" > ''tò:rò'' "chickens", ''ɲaw'' "hunger" > ''ɲə̀wə́r'' "hungers". Nouns do not have arbitrary gender, but three natural genders (male, female, non-human) are distinguished by pronouns. The possessive is expressed in two ways: * "

inalienable ''InAlienable'' is a 2007 science fiction film with horror and comic elements, written and executive produced by Walter Koenig, and directed by Robert Dyke. It was the first collaboration of Koenig and Dyke since their 1989 production of ''Moont ...

", or direct, possession: by following the possessed with the possessor (and modifying the tone or ending of the possessed in some cases): ''piá:r no'' "person's leg" ("leg person"); *

alienable possession In linguistics, inalienable possession (abbreviated ) is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "alie ...

: by putting a connecting word, conjugated according to number and gender, between the possessed and the possessor: ''làgɨˋm má màr-dɨb'' "blacksmith's horse" ("horse CONN. man+of-forge"). The connecting word is sometimes abbreviated to a simple high tone. However, if the possessor is a pronoun, it is suffixed with extensive vowel

(in the first case) or prepositional forms with "at" and optionally the connector as well, are used (in the second case): ''na:ra ɟá ɗe:'' "my man" ("man CONN. at-me"), ''mùlù'' "her eye" ("eye-her", from ''mɨla'' "eye"). Some nouns (''páw-'' "friend") occur only with bound pronouns and have no independent form. That is called

obligatory possession Obligatory possession is a linguistic phenomenon that is common in languages whose nouns are inflected for possessor, and some words, commonly kinship terms and body parts, cannot occur without a possessor in those languages. The World Atlas of Lang ...

and is found in many other language, usually for words referring to personal relationships. See

pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts o ...

for the relevant suffixes. A noun indicating someone who does, is, or has something can be formed with the prefix ''màr'', meaning roughly "he/she/it who/of": ''màr jùgòr'' "landowner", ''màr ce'' "farmer" (''ce'' = cultivate), ''màr pál'' "fisherman" (''pál'' = to fish), ''màr pàlà ta:'' "a fisher of fish". Laal does show traces of an old Adamawa-type noun-class system, but apart from loans, the forms do not appear to be cognate with the Adamawa system (Lionnet 2010). Some singular and plural nouns in Laal (Blench (2017):

Pronouns

Personal

In the following tables, note the distinction between

inclusive and exclusive we In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...

, found in many other languages but not

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, and the gender differentiation of "I" in certain forms. The inanimate plural has been dropped by most popular younger speakers in favour of the animate plural, but both are given below. The object paradigm for verbs is quite complex; only two of its several sets of

allomorph In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning. The term ''allomorph'' describes the realization of phonological variations for a specif ...

s are given in the table below. "He" and "she" are used only for human referents; other nouns take the neuter pronoun. That is quite distinct from the languages with which Laal shares vocabulary, but Laal has traces of an old Adamawa-type noun-class system (Lionnet 2010). The first- and second-person plural forms are quite similar to Chadic languages (specifically, Kera) which are currently quite distant from the Laal-speaking region, but they have no similarities to Adamawa. (The arrows indicate

triggered in by the suffix by the root.)

Relative and indefinite pronouns

Interrogative

''jé'' "what?", ''ɟè'' "who?", ''ɗé'' "where?", ''sɨ̀g'' "how much?".

Prepositions

Preposition 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 precede their objects: ''gɨ̀ pə:l'' "in(to) the village", ''kɨ́ jà:ná'' "to his body" (="to near him").

Verbs

The verb does not vary according to the person or gender of the subject, but some verbs (about a quarter of the verbs attested) vary according to its number: ''no kaw'' "the person eats", ''mùáŋ kɨw'' "the people eat". The plural form of the verb is hard to predict, but is often formed by ablaut (typically raising the vowel height) with or without a suffix ''-i(ɲ)'' or ''-ɨɲ'' and tonal change. The verb, however, changes according to the

direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

. It takes personal suffixes to indicate a pronominal

, and it commonly changes when a non-pronominal direct object is added to a transitive form with final low tone (formed similarly to the "centripetal", for which see below): ''ʔà ná ká'' "he will do"; ''ʔà ná kàrà mɨ́ná'' "he will do something"; ''ʔà kú na:ra'' "he sees the man"; ''ʔà kúù:rùúŋ'' "he sees you (pl.)". The verb has three basic forms: simple, "centripetal", and "participative" to

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...

Boyeldieu's terminology. The simple form is used in the simple

present tense The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...

or the imperative: ''ʔà duàg jə́w gə̀m'' "he goes down the riverbank" (lit. "he descend mouth riverbank"). The "centripetal" indicates action "hither", either spatially, motion towards the speaker, or temporally, action up to the present moment; it is formed mainly by suffixing a vowel (often, but not always, identical to the last vowel in the word): ''ʔà duàgà jə́w gə̀m'' "he comes down the riverbank (towards me)". The "participative", generally formed like the centripetal but with final high tone, generally indicates an omitted object or instrument: ''ʔà sá ɗa:g ʔà sɨ̀rɨ́ su'' "he takes a

calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed ...

and drinks water with it" (lit. "he take calabash he drink-participative water"). Immediately before the verb, a particle may be placed to indicate forms other than a simple present tense; such particles include ''ná'' (pl. ''ní'') marking future tense, ''taá:/teé:'' (pl. ''tií:'') marking continuous action, ''wáa:'' (pl. ''wíi:'') marking motion, ''náa:'' (pl. ''níi:'') being apparently a combination of ''ná'' and ''wáa:'', ''mà'' (pl. ''mì'') meaning "must", ''mɨ́'' marking reported speech (apparently an

evidential In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particu ...

), ''mɨ́nà'' (pl. ''mínì'') expressing intention, ''kò'' marking habitual action, ''ɓə́l'' or ''ga'' (pl. ''gi'') marking incomplete action, and ''wó'' (always accompanied by ''ʔàle'' after the verb) meaning "maybe". Mediopassives (see

passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...

middle voice In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the ...

) can be formed from

transitive verbs A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transitiv ...

by adding a suffix ''-↑ɨ́ɲ'': ''no siár sà:b'' "someone ripped the cloth" > ''sà:b sérɨ́ɲ'' "the cloth ripped". For the inverse, forming transitive verbs from

intransitive In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

s, changes in tone or to the plural sometimes occur.

Verbal noun A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English grammar, English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the ...

s can sometimes be formed, mainly from intransitives, by the addition of a suffix -(vowel)''l'', sometimes with

and tone change: '"wal'' "fall" > ''wàlál'' "a fall", ''sùbá'' "lie" > ''sɨ́blál'' (pl. ''súbɨ̀r'') "a lie". The ''l'' becomes ''n'' near a nasal and ''r'' near ''r'': ''man'' "taste good", ''manan'' "a good taste".

Adjectives

Adjectives do not seem to constitute an independent category in Laal; to all intents and purposes, they behave just like verbs: ''gò: ʔì:r'' "the goat is black". Attributively, they are typically linked as a

relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments ...

: ''gò: má ʔì:r'' "the black goat" (literally "goat which black".)

Numbers

Numbers include ''ɓɨ̀dɨ́l'' "one", ''ʔisi'' "two", ''ɓisan'' "four". No other numbers are given specifically in the works so far published.

Adverbs

Adverbs generally come at the end of the clause. Here are some important adverbs: Adverbs of location: * "here": ''ɗágàl, núŋú'' * "there": ''ɗaŋ'' * "over there, yonder": ''ɗàŋá'' Temporal adverbs: * "day before yesterday": ''tá:r'' * "yesterday": ''ʔiè:n'' * "today": ''cicam'', ''tari-màá'' * "recently": ''bèrè'' * "soon": ''sugo'' * "tomorrow": ''jìlí-kà:rì'' * "day after tomorrow": ''miàlgà''

Modals

Here are the most important modals: *Before the verb: ''mɨ́'' "(say) that", ''gàná'' "then" *After the verb: ''wó'' "not", ''(ʔà)le'' "maybe", ''ɓə́l'' "again", ''ʔá'' or ''gà'' "already", ''à''

interrogative An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its declarative counterpart "Hannah is ...

, ''wá'' exclamatory, ''ta'' "now", ''cám'' "again, anew".

Conjunctions

Conjunctions can be divided into five types: * only (

main clause An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or ...

conjunction Conjunction may refer to: * Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech * Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator ** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic * Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...

subordinate clause A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...

}: ''mɨ́'' "(say) that", ''ɓə'' "because" * either or : ''ɟò'' "if", ''dànngà'' (possibly from Baguirmian) "when" * circumposed: either or : ''ɟò... gàná'' "if" *

coordinate clause In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated or ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses that are called the conjuncts of the conjunctions. That definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech and so what constitutes a ...

- conjunction - coordinate clause: ''ní'' "then afterwards", ''ku'' "then", ''kó'' "nonetheless", ''á'' or ''ná'' "and", ''ɓe:'' "or", ''ʔàmá'' (from Arabic or Baguirmian) "but". * circumposed: conjunction - coordinate clause - conjunction - coordinate clause: ''ku... ku'' "then", ''jàn... jàn'' "both... and".

Sample sentences

*''mùáŋ lá tií: kìrì jé?'' "What do the people of Gori do?" (lit. "people Gori progressive-plural do-plural-transitive what?") *''mùáŋ lá tií: pál.'' "The people of Gori fish." (lit. "people Gori progressive-plural fish.") *''màr-ce ɓɨ́lá mɨ́ "bɨ̀là, ʔò teé: ɗɨ̀grɨ̀r".'' "The farmer said 'No way! You're tricking me.'" (lit. "man+who-cultivate say that no-way you progressive trick-me".) * ''ɟá ná wùsù na pè:rí ní ʔárí ʔò ná kìnì jé?'' "If/When I take out the snake, what will you give me?" (lit. "I (masc.) will take+out-transitive for-you (sing.) snake then first you give-me-transitive what?") * ''jà kàskàr mà mùáŋ lá sə̀ɲə́ be.'' "It's with swords that the people of Gori fight." (lit. "with swords emphatic (inan.) people Gori fight-participative battle.")

References

* Roger Blench. ''Archaeology, Language, and the African Past.'' Altamira Press forthcoming. * Pascal Boyeldieu. 1977. "Eléments pour une phonologie du laal de Gori (Moyen-Chari), ''Etudes phonologiques tchadiennes'', Paris, SELAF (Bibliothèque, 63–64), p. 186–198. * Pascal Boyeldieu. 1982. ''Deux études laal (Moyen-Chari, Tchad)'', in ''Verbindung mit SELAF, Paris''. Berlin: Reimer. Marburger Studien zur Afrika- und Asienkunde: Ser. A, Afrika; Bd. 29. . * Pascal Boyeldieu. 1982. "Quelques questions portant sur la classification du laal (Tchad)". in JUNGRAITHMAYR, H., ''The Chad languages in the Hamitosemitic-Nigritic Border Area (Papers of the Marburg Symposium, 1979)''. Berlin : Reimer, p. 80–93. Coll. Marburger Studien zur Afrika- und Asienkunde, Serie A : Afrika. * Pascal Boyeldieu. 1987. "Détermination directe/indirecte en laal". in BOYELDIEU, P., ''La maison du chef et la tête du cabri : des degrés de la détermination nominale dans les langues d'Afrique centrale''. Paris : Geuthner, p. 77–87. * David Faris, 19 September 1994. "In-House Summary: Laal/Gori language".

SIL SIL, Sil and sil may refer to: Organizations * Servis Industries Limited, Pakistan * Smithsonian Institution Libraries * SIL International, formerly Summer Institute of Linguistics * Apex Silver Mines (former American Stock Exchange ticker symb ...

Survey Team. (Unpublished.) * Florian Lionnet & Konstantin Pozdniakov, "Laal: an isolate language?

in ''Language Isolates in Africa'' workshop, Lyons, December 4, 2010

External links

Laal
at LLACAN

including two recordings of the Laal recordings online
Laal Swadesh list
(from Florian Lionnet) {{DEFAULTSORT:Laal (Language) Endangered languages of Africa Languages of Chad Language isolates of Africa Endangered language isolates