Kunama language

Kunama
Baada, Baazayn, Diila
Native to	Eritrea, Ethiopia
Region	western Eritrea, northern Ethiopia
Ethnicity	Kunama
Native speakers	180,000 (2022) [1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Kunama Kunama
Dialects	Barka (Berka) Marda Aymasa Tika (Lakatakura-Tika) Sokodasa Takazze-Setit Tigray
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Eritrea
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kun
Glottolog	kuna1268

Map of the Kunama Languages

The Kunama language has been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family, though it is distantly related to the other languages, if at all.^{[ citation needed ]} Kunama is spoken by the Kunama people of the Gash-Barka Region in western Eritrea and just across the Ethiopian border. The language has several dialects including: Barka, Marda, Aimara, Odasa, Tika, Lakatakura, Sokodasa, Takazze-Setit and Tigray. Ilit and Bitama are not mutually intelligible and so may be considered distinct languages.

In 1985 the Eritrean People's Liberation Front decided to use the Latin script for all non-Semitic languages in Eritrea, including the Kunama language. ^[2] There have been some use of the Kunama language in publications. "The first Bible translation product in Kunama was the Gospel of Mark prepared by Andersson and published in 1906." ^[3]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless		t	tʃ	k
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	g
Fricative		f	s	ʃ		( h )
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic			r
Lateral			l
Approximant		w		j

• /h/ is only of marginal status.
• /k,ɡ/ are labialized as [kʷ,ɡʷ] after back vowels.
• /k/ is heard as aspirated [kʰ] in syllable-initial position.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː	( ɨ )	u uː
Mid	e eː	( ə )	o oː
Open		a aː

• /i,e/ can be heard as [ɨ,ə] when in unstressed syllable position. ^[4]

See also

• Kunama word list (Wiktionary)

References

1. Kunama at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
2. Paul D. Fallon (18 September 2006). "Blin Orthography: A History and an Assessment" (PDF). Retrieved 1 June 2014.
3. Andemariam, Senai Woldeab (2020). "The Polygon of the Bible Translation Efforts in Eritrea 1880–2012". Journal of Translation. 16 (1): 1–16. doi: 10.54395/jot-d389t .
4. Getachew, Anteneh (2018). Segmental and Non-Segmental Phonology of Kūnámá. Addis Ababa University.

Relevant literature

• Bender, M. Lionel (1996). Kunama. Languages of the World/Materials. Vol. 59. München: Lincom Europa. ISBN   978-3-89586-072-0.
• Bender, Marvin Lionel (2001). "English-Kunama lexicon". Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere. 65: 201–253.
• Idris, Nikodimos (1987). The Kunama and their language (BA thesis). Addis Ababa University.
• Thompson, E. D. (1983). "Kunama: phonology and noun phrase". In Bender, M. L. (ed.). Nilo-Saharan Language Studies. East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. pp. 280–322.
• Thompson, E. David (1989). "Kunama Verb Phrase". In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.). Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics. Hamburg: Helmut Buske. pp. 305–346.
• Tucker, A. N.; Bryan, M. A., eds. (1966). "Kunama". Linguistic Analyses: the Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315104645. ISBN   978-1-315-10464-5.

External links

• World Atlas of Language Structures information on Kunama