Ama (language)
| Ama (Nyimang) | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Sudan | |
| speaker | approx. 70,000 (as of 1982) | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
? |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
? |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
nyi |
|
Ama (also: Nyimang , proper name: amad̪-u wad̪a "the language of the people") is a language that is spoken by around 70,000 people in the state of South Kordofan in central Sudan on Mount Jebel Nyimang (as of 1982). It belongs to the East Sudanese branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family .
Together with the related Afitti [aft] (also: Dinik ), which has only about 4,500 speakers, the Ama forms the subgroup of the “Nyimang languages” within this branch. The speakers of the two languages cannot understand each other.
Linguistic characteristics
A striking feature of this language is a paradigm of vowel suffixes used to express case functions :
| 1 | 2a | 2 B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | - | - |
| Genitive | -ʊn | -u | -O |
| Dependent genitive | -ʊn | -ʊn | -on |
| dative | -ʊŋ | -i | -ɛ / -e |
| accusative | -ʊŋ | -ɔ | -O |
| Comitive / instrumental | -ɪn | -ɛ | -e |
| locative | -ɪl | -au | -au |
In group 1, personal names, certain family names, personal and interrogative pronouns are " declined ", in group 2 all other nouns . In group 2b nouns are generally declined that end in a vowel , a liquida or the velar nasal ŋ .
The dependent genitive comes before a noun that also has a case suffix.
The nominal word formation is also richly developed in this language:
- - (ɪ) d̪a → verbal nouns
- ŋɪl-d̪a "laughter", from ŋɪl "to laugh"
- -gɪd̪i → abstraction
- mɔr-gɪd̪i "friendship", from mɔr "friend"
- -eg / -ɛg / -ig → noun agentis or residents
- li-eg "drinker", from li- / le- "drink"
- Dɔɲ-ig "inhabitants of Dilling", from Dɔɲ "Dilling (place)"
- -ɛr → noun instrumenti
- li-ɛr "drinking vessel", from li- / le- "drink"
- -al / -ɪl → noun loci
- fɪl-al "dance floor " , from fɪl "dance"
- -ɪŋ → diminutive
- gɪl-ɪŋ " little dog, puppy", from gɪl "dog"
- amad̪-ɪŋ "ama-child", from ama / amad̪- "people, ama"
- -ma → "father of ..."
- Bɛlfe-ma "Belfe's father"
- -wʊn / -wɪn → "House of ..." or "In the house of ..."
- Amina-wʊn "Amina's house" or "at home with Amina"
The morphology of the verb in Ama is also complex, u. a. the number ( singular , dual and plural ) of both the subject and the object is marked on the verb (and not on the noun).
The basic word order of this language is subject-object-verb .
annotation
A language of the same name exists in Papua New Guinea (see web links).
literature
- M. Lionel Bender: Roland Stevenson's Nyimang and Dinik lexicon . In: African Working Papers (AAP) . Vol. 63, 2000, pp. 103-120.
- Thilo C. Schadeberg: The Nilosaharan languages . In: Bernd Heine et al. (Ed.): The languages of Africa . Buske, Hamburg 1981, pp. 306-308.
- Roland C. Stevenson: A survey of the phonetics and grammatical structure of the Nuba Mountain languages, with particular reference to Otoro, Katcha and Nyimang . In: Africa and overseas . Vol. 41, 1957, pp. 171-183.
- Roland C. Stevenson et al .: The verb in Nyimang and Dinik . In: African Working Papers (AAP) . Vol. 32, 1992, pp. 5-64.