| Nateni | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Benin |
| Ethnicity | Gurma |
Native speakers | 110,000 (2021) [1] |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ntm |
| Glottolog | nate1242 |
Nateni (Natemba) is a language of the Gurma people spoken in Benin. It is named after its principal dialect; the others are Tayari (Tayaba), Kunteni (Kuntemba), Okoni (Okoma).
| Alphabet [2] | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| uppercase | A | B | C | D | E | Ɛ | F | H | I | K | Kp | M | N | O | Ɔ | P | S | T | U | W | Y |
| lowercase | a | b | c | d | e | ɛ | f | h | i | k | kp | m | n | o | ɔ | p | s | t | u | w | y |
The low tone is indicated with the grave accent and the high tone with the acute accent on the vowel ⟨à è ɛ̀ ì ò ɔ̀ ù á é ɛ́ í ó ɔ́ ú⟩ or the syllabic n ⟨ǹ ń⟩. The nasalization is indicated with the help of the tilde under the vowel ⟨a̰ ɛ̰ ḭ ɔ̰ ṵ⟩ which can be combined with the acute or grave accent indicating the tone ⟨á̰ ɛ̰́ ḭ́ ɔ̰́ ṵ́ à̰ ɛ̰̀ ḭ̀ ɔ̰̀ ṵ̀⟩.
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός, from διακρίνω. The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ( ◌́ ) and grave ( ◌̀ ), are often called accents. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.
A macron is a diacritical mark: it is a straight bar ¯ placed above a letter, usually a vowel. Its name derives from Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón) 'long' because it was originally used to mark long or heavy syllables in Greco-Roman metrics. It now more often marks a long vowel. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the macron is used to indicate a mid-tone; the sign for a long vowel is instead a modified triangular colon ⟨ː⟩.
The Standard Alphabet is a Latin-script alphabet developed by Karl Richard Lepsius. Lepsius initially used it to transcribe Egyptian hieroglyphs in his Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien and extended it to write African languages, published in 1853, 1854 and 1855, and in a revised edition in 1863. The alphabet was comprehensive but was not used much as it contained a lot of diacritic marks and was difficult to read and typeset at that time. It was, however, influential in later projects such as Ellis's Paleotype, and diacritics such as the acute accent for palatalization, under-dot for retroflex, underline for Arabic emphatics, and the click letters continue in modern use.
The acute accent, ◌́, is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed characters are available.
The double acute accent is a diacritic mark of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. It is used primarily in Hungarian or Chuvash, and consequently it is sometimes referred to by typographers as hungarumlaut. The signs formed with a regular umlaut are letters in their own right in the Hungarian alphabet—for instance, they are separate letters for the purpose of collation. Letters with the double acute, however, are considered variants of their equivalents with the umlaut, being thought of as having both an umlaut and an acute accent.
The circumflex is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin: circumflexus "bent around"—a translation of the Greek: περισπωμένη.
The Slovene alphabet is an extension of the Latin script used to write Slovene. The standard language uses a Latin alphabet which is a slight modification of the Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet, consisting of 25 lower- and upper-case letters:
Proto-Balto-Slavic is a reconstructed hypothetical proto-language descending from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). From Proto-Balto-Slavic, the later Balto-Slavic languages are thought to have developed, composed of the Baltic and Slavic sub-branches, and including modern Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Serbo-Croatian, among others.
Igala is a Yoruboid language, spoken by the Igala ethnic group of Nigeria. In 1989 an estimated 800,000 spoke Igala, primarily in Kogi State, though current estimates place the number of Igala speakers at upwards of 1.6 million. Dialects include Ibaji, Idah, Dekina, Ogugu, Ankpa, Ebu, and the Olumbanasaa group ; it is believed that these languages share some similarities with the Yoruba and Itsekiri tribe.
The grave accent is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using the Latin alphabet, such as Mohawk and Yoruba, and with non-Latin writing systems such as the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets and the Bopomofo or Zhuyin Fuhao semi-syllabary. It has no single meaning, but can indicate pitch, stress, or other features.
The double grave accent is a diacritic used in scholarly discussions of the Serbo-Croatian and sometimes Slovene languages. It is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Gokana (Gòkánà) is an Ogoni language spoken by some 130,000 people in Rivers State, Nigeria.
Puguli or Phuie (Pwĩẽ) is the language of the Phuo people. It is spoken in Burkina Faso.
Tẹẹ, or Tai, is an Ogoni language and the language of the Tai tribe of the Ogoni people of Rivers State, Nigeria. It is to a limited degree mutually intelligible with Khana, the main Ogoni language, but its speakers consider it to be a separate language.
Ngbaka (Ngbàkà) is a Gbaya language spoken by just over a million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a regionally important language, used by the Gilima, Ngbundu, Mbandja and Mono peoples, and is taught in primary schools; 10% are literate in Ngbaka.
Turka (Turuka) or Curama, is a Gur language which is spoken by the Turka people in southwest Burkina Faso. Its closest linguistic relative is the Cerma language: however, they are not mutually intelligible. Due to economic, religious and educational influence, many Turka people also speak Arabic and Jula.
Tammari is a language which is spoken in Benin and Togo. It is also known as Ditammari. The Tammari people, who live in Benin and Togo, mostly speak the language. There are about 47.000 speakers. About half live in Togo, the other half in Benin. Ditammari is one of the Gur languages.
Karenni or Red Karen, known in Burmese as Kayah, is a Karen dialect continuum spoken by over half a million Kayah people in Burma.
Orejón (Oregon), also Coto or Maijiki, is a moribund Tucanoan language of Peru.
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