| Description:
Korandje is by far the most northerly of the Songhay languages. It is spoken around the oasis of Tabelbala by no more than a few thousand people; its name, Kora-n-dje, means "village's language". While retaining a basically Songhay structure, it is extremely heavily influenced by Berber and Arabic; Lacroix estimates that only 40% of its vocabulary is Songhay, with another 30% each from Arabic and Berber.
Little study of Korandje has been done, so the phonology of the language is necessarily somewhat tentative. According to Robert Nicolai, it has the following consonants:
Nicolai also reports pharyngealized consonants ṭ ḍ ṣ ẓ ṇ ḥ as well as x q, but mainly in loanwords. Tilmatine reports additionally a pharyngealized ṛ and a palatal affricate dž.
Korandje appears to have a six-vowel system: a, i, u, e, o, and ə (schwa). It is unclear whether vowel length is phonemic or not.
The pronouns are: aγi, I; ni, you; ana, he/she/it; yayu, we; n'd'yu, you (plural); ini, they. Possessive pronouns are an, my; nen, your; an, his/her/its; yan, our; n'd'en, your (pl.); in, their.
The infinitive and singular imperative are both the stem (eg xani "sleep"); the plural imperative takes a prefix u-..... full article at Wikipedia |
