Kabba language
| Kaba | |
|---|---|
| Kabba of Gore | |
| Native to | Central African Republic, Chad |
| Ethnicity | Sara people |
Native speakers | (72,000 Kaba in CAR cited 1996, and 11,000 in Chad cited 1971)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ksp |
| Glottolog | kaba1281 |
Kaba (Kabba), or Kabba of Goré, is a language of the Sara people in Central African Republic and Chad, with around 100,000 speakers.
There are several languages named Kaba, which is a local generic term approximately equivalent to Sara. Kaba of Gore is confusing classified as a Sara rather than as a Kaba language.
Kabba is a
tonal language. There are three tones
, High (H) Mid (M) and Low (L).
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | (ŋ) | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | (ʔ) | |
| voiced | b | d | g | |||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | (ts) | tʃ | |||
| voiced | (dz) | dʒ | ||||
| prenasal | (ⁿdz) | ⁿdʒ | ||||
| Fricative | s | (h) | ||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
- The glottal stop [ʔ] is only heard in word-initial position, before vowels.
- /h/ occurs only in limited distribution.
- Sounds /t, d, ⁿd/ are heard in complimentary distribution with affricate sounds [ts, dz, ⁿdz] when in word initial position before /i/.
- /ɗ/ may have a retroflex [ɽ] or trill [r] allophone, when in intervocalic positions.
- /ɾ/ may also be heard as a retroflex [ɽ] in free variation.
- [ŋ] occurs as an allophone of /n/ when before a velar stop, or when at the end of root words or morphemes.[2]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | (ɨ) | u uː |
| Close-mid | e eː | ə | o oː |
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː | |
| Open | a aː |
- /ə/ is heard as [ɨ] when in CVCV open syllables.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | ĩ | ũ | |
| Mid | ɛ̃ | ə̃ | ɔ̃ |
| Open | ã |
References
- ^ Kaba at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Moser, Rosmarie (2004). Kabba: A Nilo-Saharan Language of the Central African Republic. München: Lincom.