Berta proper, a.k.a. ''Gebeto'', is spoken by the
Berta (also ''Bertha, Barta, Burta'') in
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
and
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
.
The three
Berta languages
The Berta languages, or Funj, traditionally considered dialects of a single language, are Gebeto (Berta proper), Fadashi, and Undu. They are either a small family (or language isolate) of their own, or a primary branch of the Nilo-Saharan langu ...
, Gebeto,
Fadashi and
Undu, are often considered dialects of a single language. Berta proper includes the dialects Bake, Dabuso, Gebeto, Mayu, and Shuru; the dialect name ''Gebeto'' may be extended to all of Berta proper.
Phonology
Consonants
* Voiced plosives /b, d, ɡ/ may be heard as voiceless
, t, kin free variation, word-initially or word-finally.
* A glottal stop
mainly occurs between vowels, and may also be heard before word-initial vowel sounds.
* Nasal-stop sequences may occur morpheme-initially as
b, nd, ŋɡ, ŋkʼ
* /ŋ/ is heard as
when preceding a front vowel /i/ or /e/.
* /kʼ/ is heard as a palatal
ʼwhen before front vowels.
* /ɡ/ can be heard as voiced palatal
or as a voiceless palatal
when before front vowels.
* /h/ in word-final position can be heard as a fricative
* /s, θ/ may sometimes occur as slightly voiced
, ðin vocalic or nasal environments.
Vowels
* If a non-closed vowel sound, /ɛ/ or /ɔ/, are adjacent to a closed vowel sound like /i/ or /u/ within vowel harmony, they are then heard as more closed
, o
Pronouns
The pronouns of Berta are as follows:
See also
*
Berta word lists (Wiktionary)
References
Bibliography
* Torben Andersen. "Aspects of Berta phonology". ''Afrika und Übersee'' 76: pp. 41–80.
* Torben Andersen. "Absolutive and Nominative in Berta". ed. Nicolai & Rottland, ''Fifth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium. Nice, 24–29 August 1992. Proceedings.'' (Nilo-Saharan 10). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. 1995. pp. 36–49.
* M.
Lionel Bender
Marvin Lionel Bender (August 18, 1934 – February 19, 2008) was an American linguist.
Life
Bender was born August 18, 1934, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He travelled throughout the world, particularly in Northeast Africa, and was an accompli ...
. "Berta Lexicon". In Bender (ed.), ''Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics'' (Nilo-Saharan 3), pp. 271–304. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag 1989.
* E. Cerulli. "Three Berta dialects in western Ethiopia", ''Africa'', 1947.
* Susanne Neudorf & Andreas Neudorf: ''Bertha - English - Amharic Dictionary''. Addis Ababa: Benishangul-Gumuz Language Development Project 2007.
* A. N. Tucker & M. A. Bryan. ''Linguistic Analyses: The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa.'' London: Oxford University Press 1966.
* A. Triulzi, A. A. Dafallah, and M. L. Bender. "Berta". In Bender (ed.), ''The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia''. East Lansing, Michigan: African Studies Center, Michigan State University 1976, pp. 513–532.
External links
*
World Atlas of Language Structures
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural ( phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-R ...
information o
BertaWebsite maintained by the language community, including published literature and an online dictionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berta Language
Berta languages
Languages of Sudan
Languages of Ethiopia
Subject–verb–object languages