Kwʼadza language

Kwʼadza
Kwʼadza
Ngomvia
Native to	Afro-Asiatic? East Kwʼadza; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wka
Glottolog	kwad1248
ELP	Kw'adza

Kwʼadza (Qwadza), or Ngomvia, is an extinct

Mbulu District. The last speaker died sometime between 1976 and 1999.^[1]

Classification

Kwʼadza is poorly attested, and apart from perhaps being close to

Aasax, its classification is not certain. Although it has a large number of identifiably Cushitic roots, the non-Cushitic numerals itame 'one' and beʼa ~ mbɛa 'two' suggest a connection with Hadza, while haka 'four' suggests a connection with Sandawe. It is possible that Kwʼadza borrowed e.g. 'four' from Sandawe, but also that it was a non-Cushitic language whose speakers were undergoing language shift to Cushitic when it was recorded.^{[citation needed}

]

Phonology

The phonology is not certain, but the following has been suggested (Ehret 1980):

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	plain	labial	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t				k	kʷ	ʔ
Plosive	voiced	b	d				ɡ	ɡʷ
Affricate			dz
Ejective			tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ		kʼ	kʼʷ
Fricative		f	s	ɬ			x	xʷ	h
Approximant		β̞		l		j

/ɡ/ and /l/ have the allophones [dʒ] and [ɽ] before front vowels. /tʃʼ/ is 'mildly' ejective. Ehret reports that /kʼ/ and /kʼʷ/ are voiced [ɡ, ɡʷ] if a preceding consonant is voiced.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open	a

Notes

^ ^a ^b Kwʼadza at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

References

Christopher Ehret, 1980. "Kwʼadza vocabulary". ms.

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[e25-1] Kwʼadza at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[1]