Kissi language

Last updated
Kissi
Native to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone
Ethnicity Kissi people
Native speakers
910,000 (2017–2020) [1]
Niger–Congo?
Dialects
  • Luangkori
  • Tengia
  • Warn
  • Liaro
  • Kama
  • Teng
  • Tung
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Either:
kss  – Southern Kissi
kqs  – Northern Kissi
Glottolog kiss1245
Linguasphere (Kisi, incl. 94-BAB-aa Kisi-N. & 94-BAB-ab Kisi-S.) 94-BAB-a (Kisi, incl. 94-BAB-aa Kisi-N. & 94-BAB-ab Kisi-S.)

Kissi (also Kisi or Kisiei) is a Mel language of West Africa, There are two dialects, northern and southern, and both are tonal languages. The northern dialect (kisiduei) is spoken in Guinea and in Sierra Leone. The southern dialect (kpekeduei) is spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone. [2] The two dialects are notably different, but are closely related.

Contents

In Guinea, the main places Kissi is spoken are the cities of Kissidougou and Guéckédou and their préfectures.

Phonology

Vowels

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

/o,e/ can also approximate to the sounds [ɪ,ʊ].

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial-velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p t k kp
voiced/imp. ɓ ɗ ( gb )
prenasalized ᵐb ⁿd ( ᶮɟ ) ᵑɡ ᵑᵐɡ͡b
Affricate t͡ʃ
Fricative f s h
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Approximant l j w

Kissidougou dialects preserve a distinction between /r/ and /l/ phonemes that have been merged as allophones in dialects south of Guéckédou. For instance, la huŋ means exactly the same as ra huŋ. Also, "thank you" is realized as barika around Kissidougou and balika south of Guéckédou. [r] is considered an allophone of /l/ in Kissidougou.

/w/ can also have an allophone of [v] when preceding front vowel sounds.

The voiced labial-velar stop /gb/ occurs only in onomatopoeic phrases, and medial gb can be regarded as an allophone of its voiceless counterpart. [3]

Tone

Kissi has four tones: two register and two contour. The two register tones are level and high, and the two contour tones are a rising mid tone and a falling high tone. Kissi also has an extra-high tone, but occurs only sparingly, functioning in only a few grammatical contexts. [3]

Grammar (northern Kissi)

Pronouns

Kissi pronounPronunciationEnglish pronounKissi exampleEnglish translation
y/i/Iy tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.I'm going there.
a/a/youa tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.You're going there.
o/o/he/sheo tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.He's going there.
n/n/wen tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.We're going there.
la/la/you (plural)la tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.You're going there.
aa/aː/theyaa tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.They're going there.

As can already be seen from these examples, verbs are not conjugated like English verbs, but they are inflected by tone.

Kissi pronounPronunciationEnglish pronounKissi exampleEnglish translation
ya/ja/meo tyo ya lɔ.
yɔŋgu ya ho. / k'ya ho.		He's going to beat me.
Give me that.
nɔm/nɔm/youy tyo nɔm lɔ.I'm going to beat you.
ndu/ndu/him/hery tyo ndu lɔ.
o tyo ndu pilɛ lɔ.		I'm going to beat him / her.
He's going to beat himself.
na/na/uso tyo na lɔ.He's going to beat us.
nia/nia/you (plural)o tyo nia lɔ.He's going to beat you.
ndaa/ndaː/themo tyo ndaa lɔ.He's going to beat them.

Articles

Definite and indefinite articles do not exist in Kissi, so muɛi means "the knife" as well as "a knife". If an object has to be defined (because there are more than one, for example), "this" is used:

example: muɛi coŋ - this knife

If that is not exact enough, an object is described using adjectives.

yɔŋgu ya muɛi. / k'ya muɛi. - Give me a/the knife.

yɔŋgu ya muɛi bɛndɛi. / k'ya muɛi bɛndɛi. - Give me the big knife.

References

  1. ↑ Southern Kissi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
    Northern Kissi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. ↑ Childs 1995 , p. 9: Keita (1979) identifies two major dialects, a northern dialect kisiduei (with many borrowings from Maninka (=Mandingo)) and a southern dialect kpekeduei. The second of these can be divided into three separate dialects. Grimes (1988) says only that Northern. Kisi and Southern Kisi are "different" from each other, and reports four different dialects for Northern Kisi: Liaro, Kama, Teng, Tung.
  3. 1 2 Childs 1995.
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