Mbre or Pere, known as ''Pεrε'' among themselves and as ''Bεrε'' by the locally dominant

Koro Koro may refer to: Geography *Koro Island, a Fijian island * Koro Sea, in the Pacific Ocean * Koro, Ivory Coast *Koro, Mali * Koro, Wisconsin, United States, an unincorporated community Languages *Koro language (India), an endangered language spo ...

, also spelled Pre and Bre, is an

moribund language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

of the Ivory Coast. It was first described in an unpublished manuscript by Denis Creissels. A grammar, dictionary and texts have been published by

Jeffrey Heath Jeffrey Heath (born November 29, 1949) is Professor of Historical Linguistics, Morphology, Arabic and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Michigan, US. He is known particularly for his work in historical linguistics and for his extensive ...

and Brahima Tioté.

Sociolinguistic situation

Pere is spoken in the village of Bondosso – and marginally in Niantibo – not far from the city of

Bouaké Bouaké (or Bwake, N’ko: ߓߐ߰ߞߍ߫ ''Bɔ̀ɔkɛ́'') is the second-largest city in Ivory Coast, with a population of 740,000 (2021 census). It is the seat of three levels of subdivision— Vallée du Bandama District, Gbêkê Region, and Bo ...

, Ivory Coast. Until recently it was also spoken in the village of Kouakoudougou. The speakers are a '' numu'' (blacksmith) caste among the Mande. It had 30 active speakers in 2019 out of an ethnic population that was 700 in the year 2000. Speakers are shifting to the neighbouring Manding language

, and the language has large numbers of Manding

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 t ...

Classification

Mbre does not appear to belong to any of the traditional branches of the Niger–Congo language family. It doesn't have the verb extensions or noun classes characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo 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 work ...

suspects it may form its own branch, though perhaps not far from the

Kwa languages The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo. The name was introduced 1895 by Gottlob Kr ...

Phonology

The phonology section below is sourced from Heath & Tioté (2019). There are two tones, a /H/ and /L/, but phonetically /L/ may be realized as mid tone when followed by another /L/. Grammatical use of tone includes the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect. There are seven vowel qualities, with an

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distinction in the mid vowels, but no vowel harmony. All seven may be long or short, nasal or oral. /CVɾV/ tends to be realized as əɾVfor any short vowel. The consonant inventory is also typical for the area, with marginal /h/ and /ʔ/. Additionally, there are the phonemes /l/, /ɾ/, /w/, /j/. /CjV/ and /CwV/ sequences occur.

Grammar

Nouns have "absolute" suffix /a/ that appears at the end of a noun phrase and in citation form. Word order is SVOX. There are

phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (e ...

s with

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 ...

Sociolinguistic situation

Classification

Phonology

Grammar

References

Further reading