| Also Known As: Dala,For,Konjara,Furakang,Fora,Kurka,Kondjara,Kungara,Furawi,Yerge,Four,Forok,Korra,Lali,Fordunga,Onage,Kadirgi,Forta
Description:
The Fur language (Fur bèle fòòr or fòòraŋ bèle, Arabic فوراوي Fûrâwî; sometimes called Konjara by linguists, after a former ruling clan) is the language of the Fur of Darfur in western Sudan. It belongs to the Fur branch of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. It has about 3,000,000 speakers (500,000 in 1983.)
The consonantal phonemes are:
All symbols have their IPA value except for the following: j = [ɟ], ñ = [ɲ] and y = [j]. z occurs only as an allophone of y. Arabic consonants are sometimes used in loanwords. /h/ is very rare.
The vowels are as in Latin: a e i o u. There is dispute as to whether the +ATR vowels [ɛ], [ɔ], [ɪ], [ʊ] are phonetic variants or separate phonemes. /f/ is in free variation amongst a series of sounds ranging between [p] and [f]; thus some sources give the name of the language as pɔɔr.
There are two underlying tonemes, L (low) and H (high); phonetically, L, H, mid, HL and LH are all found.
Interestingly, metathesis is an extremely common, and regular, grammatical phenomenon in Fur; when a consonant pronoun prefix is prefixed to a verb that begins with a consonant, either the verb's first consonant is deleted or it changes places with the following vowel. Eg: lem-..... full article at Wikipedia |
