Nemadi dialect

Last updated
Nemadi
Ikoku
Native to Mali, Mauritania
RegionTimbuktu into Mauritania
Native speakers
(200 cited 1967) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog None

The Nemadi are small hunting tribe of eastern Mauritania. Their language is according to some sources a dialect of Hassaniyya, according to others a mixture of Zenaga, Soninke and Hassaniyya. [2] [3] The name "Nemadi" itself appears to come from Soninke, where it means "master of dogs".

Contents

Accounts of the language

According to Robert Arnaud (1906), "around Tichit the Nemadi employ a dialect called Azeïr which is close to Soninke." Chudeau (1913), perhaps following him, adds that "We have little information on their language, which M. Delafosse classifies provisionally with Soninké." However, Brosset (1932) says that they speak Hassaniyya, and that "their special vocabulary does not consist of vocables different from Hassaniyya, but of technical terms which need has forced them to create, which are forged from Arabic, Zenaga, and maybe Azer."

Ech Chinguetti's Kitab El Wasit says that "The Nmadi speak the dialect common to all the Moors (i.e. Hassaniyya). However, they do not pronounce the final m of the affixed second person plural pronoun, so they say: as-Salam alayku ("peace be upon you") for alaikum, and kayfa haluku ("how are you?") for halukum."[ citation needed ]

Laforgue claims that they speak "Zenati", i.e. Berber, a claim seen by Hermans as "very improbable".[ citation needed ]

According to Gerteiny (1967), they speak "their own dialect, probably a mixture of Azêr [Soninke], Zenaga, and Hassaniyya, called Ikôku by the Moors. They express themselves in brief idiomatic phrases, and the language has neither singular nor plural."[ citation needed ]

The Ethnologue's former description of their language appears to be based solely on this source. [4] Later editions say that "The Nemadi (Ikoku) are an ethnic group of 200 (1967) that speak Hassaniyya, but they have special morphemes for dogs, hunting, and houses". [1]

Hermans' opinion is that "the language spoken by the Nemadi in general (there may remain some Azer-speaking Nemadi) is Hassaniyya. But one must recognize certain peculiarities", including the lack of plural, certain argot-like expressions (cf. Fondacci), and the technical terms (cf. Brosset, Fondacci, Gabus.)[ citation needed ]

See also

In literature

The Nemadi feature in a side story in Bruce Chatwin's semi-fictional book The Songlines about Aboriginal Australians.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hausa language</span> Chadic language of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and neighbouring countries

Hausa is a Chadic language spoken by the Hausa people in the northern half of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern half of Niger, Chad and Sudan, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luxembourgish</span> Germanic language spoken in Luxembourg

Luxembourgish is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolof language</span> Language of Senegal, the Gambia, and Mauritania

Wolof is a language of Senegal, Mauritania, and the Gambia, and the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Unlike most other languages of the Niger-Congo family, Wolof is not a tonal language.

Zenaga is a Berber language on the verge of extinction currently spoken in Mauritania and northern Senegal by a few hundred people. Zenaga Berber is spoken as a mother tongue from the town of Mederdra in southwestern Mauritania to the Atlantic coast and in northern Senegal. The language is recognized by the Mauritanian government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Songhay languages</span> Group of languages of West Africa

The Songhay, Songhai or Ayneha languages are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, they are spoken in the cities of Timbuktu, Niamey and Gao. They have been widely used as a lingua franca in that region ever since the era of the Songhai Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hassaniya Arabic</span> Maghrebi Arabic dialect spoken by Mauritanians and Sahrawi

Hassānīya is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs and the Sahrawi. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and Morocco's southeastern and Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. Hassānīya Arabic was the language spoken in the pre-modern region around Chinguetti.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sahrawi people</span> People living in the western Sahara desert

The Sahrawi, or Saharawi people, are an ethnic group and nation native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Berber, Arab and Black African descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oualata</span> Commune and town in Hodh Ech Chargui, Mauritania

Oualata or Walata is a small oasis town in southeast Mauritania, located at the eastern end of the Aoukar basin. Oualata was important as a caravan city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the southern terminus of a trans-Saharan trade route and now it is a World Heritage Site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Mali</span>

Mali is a multilingual country. The languages spoken there reflect ancient settlement patterns, migrations, and its long history. Ethnologue counts more than 80 languages. Of these, French is the official language and Bambara is the most widely spoken. All together 13 of the indigenous languages of Mali have the legal status of national language.

The Mandé peoples are ethnic groups who are speakers of Mande languages. Various Mandé speaking ethnic groups are found particularly toward the west of West Africa. The Mandé Speaking languages are divided into two primary groups: East Mandé and West Mandé.

Bakel is a town of approximately 15,000 inhabitants located in the eastern part of Senegal, West Africa. The town is located on the left bank of the Sénégal River, 65 kilometers (40 mi) from the Malian border and linked by canoe ferry to the village of Gouraye in Mauritania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanhaja</span> Medieval Berber tribal confederation

The Sanhaja were once one of the largest Berber tribal confederations, along with the Zanata and Masmuda confederations. Many tribes in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia and Western Sahara bore and still carry this ethnonym, especially in its Berber form. Other names for the population include Zenaga, Znaga, Sanhája, Sanhâdja and Senhaja.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algerian Arabic</span> Maghrebi dialect of the Arabic language spoken in Algeria

Algerian Arabic, natively known as Dziria, Darja or Derja, is a dialect derived from the form of Arabic spoken in Algeria. It belongs to the Maghrebi Arabic language continuum and is partially mutually intelligible with Tunisian and Moroccan.

Bozo is a Mande language spoken by the Bozo people of the Inner Niger Delta in Mali. For Fishing, many Bozo are also found in other West African countries where there are Rivers and Dams, such as Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. According to the 2000 census, the Bozo people number about 132,100. Bozo is considered a dialect cluster, but there is a quite a bit of diversity. Ethnologue recognises four languages on the basis of requirements for literacy materials. Bozo is part of the northwestern branch of the Mande languages; the closest linguistic relative is Soninke, a major language spoken in the northwestern section of southern Mali, in eastern Senegal, and in southern Mauritania. The Bozo often speak one or more regional languages such as Bambara, Fula, or Western Songhay. The language is tonal, with three lexical tones.

The Soninke language, also known as Serakhulle or Azer is a Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of Africa. The language has an estimated 2.1 million speakers, primarily located in Mali, and also in Senegal, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ghana. It enjoys the status of a national language in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania.

Caste systems in Africa are a form of social stratification found in numerous ethnic groups, found in over fifteen countries, particularly in the Sahel, West Africa, and North Africa. These caste systems feature endogamy, hierarchical status, inherited occupation, membership by birth, pollution concepts and restraints on commensality.

Tetserret is a Western Berber language spoken by the Ait-Awari and Kel Eghlal Tuareg tribes of the Akoubounou (Akabinu) commune in Niger. This main speech area is located between Abalak, Akoubounou and Shadwanka. The variant spoken by the Kel Eghlal is called taməsəɣlalt. The Tamasheq equivalent shin-sart / shin-sar / tin-sar is used in some older literature. Popular understanding among some Ait-Awari derives the name tet-serret, and its Tamasheq equivalent shin-sart, from expressions meaning 'the (language) of Sirte'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mauritania</span> Country in Northwest Africa

Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world, and 90% of its territory is situated in the Sahara. Most of its population of 4.4 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly one-third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Mauritania</span>

The languages of Mauritania mainly consist of various Afroasiatic languages, including: Zenaga-Berber, Tamasheq-Berber, Hassaaniya Arabic and Standard written Arabic. French is also used due to colonial influence. Some ethnic minorities speak Niger-Congo languages.

Émile Masqueray was a 19th-century French anthropologist, linguist, and writer. He was an expert on the Berber–Tuareg peoples of North Africa.

References

  1. 1 2 Hassaniyya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Christopher Moseley, Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages, Routledge, 2007, ISBN   978-0-7007-1197-0 p. 623: No data exists on this language. It is not unlikely that the language can be linked to Azer, Zenaga, Soninke and/or Hassaniya
  3. Muriel Devey, La Mauritanie, KARTHALA Editions, 2005 ISBN   978-2-84586-583-9, p.39: "leur langue est un mélange d'hassaniya, de zenaga et d'azer"
  4. Nemadi entry in the Languages of Mali Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine , 13th edition (1996)

Bibliography