Mimi of Nachtigal, or Mimi-N, is a language 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 ...
that is attested only in a word list labelled "
Mimi" that was collected ca. 1870 by
Gustav Nachtigal
Gustav Nachtigal (; born 23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885) was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His missio ...
. Nachtigal's data was subsequently published by Lukas &
Voelckers (1938).
Classification
Joseph 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 ...
(1960) classified it as a
Maban language
The Maban languages are a small family of languages which have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan family. Maban languages are spoken in eastern Chad, the Central African Republic and western Sudan ( Darfur).
Languages
The Maban branch i ...
, though a distant one. Subsequent researchers have supported a remote relationship, though there is little data to go on.
[Starostin, George]
On Mimi
''Journal of Language Relationship'', v. 6, 2011, pp. 115-140.
Basic vocabulary
The more stable of Mimi-N and Mimi-D's attested vocabulary is as follows:
See also
*
Mimi of Decorse
Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled " Mimi" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes. Josep ...
*
Mimi of Nachtigal word list (Wiktionary)
References
Maban languages
Languages of Chad
Languages attested from the 1870s
Extinct languages of Africa
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