Daffo (language)

The Daffo is a language spoken by around 10,000 people around the place Daffo (self- name ɗáfó ) about 80 km south of the city of Jos in central Nigeria . It belongs to the group of the Ron languages, a subgroup of the West Chadian languages and thus ultimately the Chadian languages . Dominant major languages in the region are Hausa and, secondly, Ngas , both of which are also West Chadian languages. The Daffo tends to be ousted by the Hausa and must be considered an endangered language.

According to the system

Consonants

	Labials	Dental	Palatal	Velare
voiceless plosives	p	t	č	k
voiced plosives	b	d	j	G
Implosive	ɓ	ɗ
voiceless fricatives	f	s	š
voiced fricatives	v	z
Nasals	m	n	ɲ	ŋ

In addition, there are the liquids r and l, the glides y and w, the glottals ʔ and h, and, marginally, in a few words, the labiovelars kp and gb.

Connections of a nasal and another voiced consonant (mb, nd, ɲj, ŋg, nv, nz, mgb), which could be understood as independent phonemes (so-called prenasal consonants, which are generally common in the region ), are very common .

Consonant connections at the beginning of a word can only occur to a limited extent. These are first the mentioned connections with a nasal as the first component (example mgbáŋ "large") and secondly connections with half-vowels (example lwyāš "bird").

Vowels

The daffo has only five vowels: i, e, a, o, u.

Sounds

The Daffo is a tonal language with three levels: high (á), medium (ā) and low (à). Especially on the last syllable of the word there are movement tones, which are notated here in such a way that an accent is written on the vowel itself and a second accent after the vowel: high-low-falling (á`), high-medium-falling ( á¯), medium-low-falling (ā`), low-high-rising (à´), low-medium-rising (à¯), medium-high-rising (ā´). The movement tones are partly the result of fusing two originally separate vowels, but this cannot be proven in all cases.

Within a word normally one syllable cannot have a middle tone and the next a low tone; The sequence mid-tone - mid-low-falling is well documented.

noun

genus

The Daffo has a grammatical gender with the two genders masculine and feminine. The gender is not recognizable from the noun itself, but shows up in congruence phenomena . Similar to German, the gender of personal names is identical to the natural gender, but of factual names, on the other hand, is determined quite arbitrarily.

Plural

Nouns form a plural. Its shapes are quite irregular. Basically, there are numerous tone changes that have not yet been explained in detail:

Ending -aš or -ay:

hóʔ "egg" - hōʔáš "eggs"
ɲjórèt "star" - ɲjòrètáš "star"
tàmō "sheep" - tàmwàš "sheep"
tìdàm "elephant" - tìdàmāš "elephant"
wúr "house" - wūráy "houses"

Infix -a-:

gōŋ "field" - gwāáŋ "fields"
méèr "tree" - mìyār "trees"
nís "brother" - nyáàs "brothers"
sākúr "foot" - sākwá`r "feet"

Others:

čàá`n "chicken" - čànàn "chicken"
čìrā "dog" - čìrè "dogs"
rá "hand" - rē "hands"
ŋgú`r "tooth" - ŋgūr "teeth"

very irregular:

má`r "child" - fè "children"
nāfú "woman" - rēf "women"

Definite article

The Daffo has a certain suffused article, the use of which, however, differs somewhat from that of the German, which needs to be examined more closely. It reads - (h) i and adapts tonally to the preceding syllable: after the high tone there is - (h) í, after the middle or low tone there is - (h) ī. If the preceding syllable contains a movement tone, it will be simplified. Examples:

nāáf "man" - nāáf-í "the man"
nāfú "woman" - nāfú-hí "the woman"
číf "money" - číf-í "money"
má`r "child" - már-í "the child"
čàá`n "chicken" - čàán-í "the chicken"
kúkùm "lion" - kúkùm-ī "the lion"
fūn "corpse" - fūn-ī "the corpse"

The article is not at the end of the noun, but at the end of the entire noun phrase:

rēf m̀mīs-ī "their wives / the wives of them"
dá sī már-í "the father and (the) son"

Attributes

Adjectival and genitive attributes are behind their reference word. A connector element must appear in between, which congruent with the reference word. This is tī for a feminine reference word and mà for a masculine or plural reference word.

The genitive construction consists of simply joining two nouns in this way; a special genitive case does not exist:

góŋ tī Áūdù "the field of Audu" (góŋ "field" is feminine; Audu is a male name common in Nigeria, from Arabic Abdu)
gwāáŋ mà nāf "the fields of the people"
čìrā mà má`r "the boy's dog"
vís mà má`r sàní "the father of this boy"
ndú tī hām "the bottle of water = water bottle"

Adjectives aren't numerous in Daffo. They are treated like genitives and connected with the same connectors. Examples of their construction:

māɗāfál mà sàré` "a good person"
púrí mà mgbáŋ "a big horse"

Demonstratives

Demonstratives are behind their reference word. In this case, no connector appears. The correspondence to our "this, this, this" is:

sàní (mask.)
tūní (fem.)
kyāní (pl.)

Examples:

čìrā sàní "that dog"
čìrè kyāní "these dogs"
hām kyāní "this water" (hām "water" is treated as plural)
wúúr tūní "this house" (wúúr "house" is feminine)

Personal pronouns and related matters

to form

	independent	Subject pronoun before verb	Subject pronoun before adverb	Accusative suffix	Dative suffix	Possessive suffix
1st sg. "I"	yín	í	yáá	-sen	-en	-in
2.sg.mask. "you"	Ha	á	áá	-Ha	-a	-a
2.sg.fem. "you"	šíš	ší	šáá	-šeš	-it	-iš
3.sg.mask. "he"	yís	à	má	-sis	-is	-is
3.sg.fem. "she"	yít	tí	mú	-set	-et	-it
1.pl. "I + you"	čín	čí	čyáá	-čin	-čin	-čin
1.pl. "I + you + others"	čán	čá	čáá	-can	-can	-can
1.pl. "me + others"	nín	ní	náá	-nin	-nin	-nin
2.pl. "her"	hún	hú	hwáá	-hun	-u	-u
3.pl. "she"	sín	sí	mí	-sis	-is	-is

A gender distinction in the 2nd person is also widely used in other Chadian (and Afro-Asian ) languages. so called and not only, as in German, in the 3rd person. so called A little more exotic is the existence of three different forms that correspond to our "we".

The dative and possessive suffixes are very similar to each other.

The tone of the suffixes is explained in the sections on the respective constructions.

Use of possessive suffixes

The function of the possessive suffixes corresponds to our possessive pronouns. The possessive suffixes can only be attached directly to a noun to a limited extent, namely essentially only with some kinship terms and also only the short suffixes starting with a vowel:

nís-ín "my brother"
māt-ís "his mother"

In the general case, a supporting element is added, namely ǹz (ī) - for feminine reference words and m̀m (ī) - for masculine or plural reference words. The suffixes themselves are then medium-tone:

čìrā m̀mīn "my dog"
čìrè m̀mīn "my dogs"
číf m̀mīs "his money"
nyáàs m̀mīnīn "our brothers"
nāfú ǹzīs "his wife"
čā ǹzū "your food"

verb

A verbal expression in Daffo basically consists of the connection of a subject pronoun with a verbal stem. The subject prefix must also appear if the verb is preceded by an explicit subject. Furthermore, the verbal stem itself has no personal inflection.

Many verbs have an -ay suffix. Some tribes occur both with and without this suffix, e.g. B. fīs "jump" vs. fīsā`y "to skip something".

While the tone sequences in words of the Daffo can generally be very diverse, the tones of verb forms are much more defined. Almost every verb can be classified into one of two tone classes. Crossing this, verbs can be classified as monosyllables, two-syllables and stems ending in -ay (mostly two-syllable, but inflected differently than normal two-syllables). This results in six classes. If the class of a verb is given, the tone progression and the syllable structure of the verb forms can be largely predicted.

Aorist

The aorist can be seen as the simplest form of the verb. It can express an action in the present or in the past. It is formed by combining a (normal) subject pronoun with the aorist stem. For verbs of tone class 1, the aorist stem has a high-low tone (for monosyllables or stems on -ay) or medium-low (for two-syllables), for verbs of tone class 2 it has a continuous mid-tone (usually) or a tone course medium-low (for stems to -ay).

á čū "you (mask.) eat / ate"
à čū "he eats / ate"
í hālā`y "I hear (t) e"

The aorist also serves as an imperative:

á čū "eat! (mask.)"
ší yēs "come! (fem.)"
hú yú` "go! (pl.)"

Perfect

The perfect expresses an attained state. It consists of the subject pronoun, which here in the 3rd pers. so called masc. takes the special form ūwú (instead of à), connected with the perfect stem of the verb. The perfect stem basically has an ending -an, which is medium-tone for verbs in tone class 1 and high-tone for verbs in tone class 2. Stems with -ay behave differently and only form the perfect stem by changing the tone. It may be assumed that the -ay originally followed the perfect ending -an and its consonant -n- was dropped: šītā`y "see", perfect šītá`y possibly from * šīt + án + ày.

ūwú šītá`y "he saw"
tí fwā´n "she has gone"
í čwā´n "I ate"
á màtā`y "you answered"

Habitational

The habitative stands for habitual or repeated actions. It consists of the normal subject pronoun and the habitative stem. Compared to the aorist stem, this shows an insertion of -aa- before the last consonant (whereby a suffix -ay is not counted). In principle, it has the same tone course as the aorist stem, but the tone course for verbs in tone class 2 is medium-high-rising instead of just medium.

à hyāák "he kills (usually)"
sí jyáày "they cook (usually)"
í šyāátày "I see (usually)"

Progressive

The progressive roughly corresponds to the present progressive or past progressive in English. It consists of the combination

Subject pronouns of the series used before the adverb + (preposition á "in, an") + verbal nouns

Originally there is a construction that is comparable to the German "he is walking". The preposition á, however, merges with the environment and is usually no longer recognizable; it only appears again if the dative object is inserted (see below).

The verbal noun is the only verbal form of the Daffo with a form that is not always predictable. The stem has a middle tone in tone class 1 and mostly high tone in tone class 2. Transitive verbs add a suffix -i, which is omitted as soon as a (nominal or pronominal) object follows. Intransitive verbs usually have a prefix mā. In the construction of the progressive, however, this loses its initial m-, whereby the vowels that meet each other merge into one vowel (often with a movement tone).

yáá hāláyī "I'm listening (now)"
mwá¯yēs "she comes (straight)", from mú + māyēs
yáānīī "I say (straight)", from yáá + mānīī
yááʔāsáyī ~ yáāsáyī "I do (just)", from yáá + māsáyī

Future tense

One way of creating futuristic statements is to combine the progressive verb "go" + preposition á "in, zu" + verbal nouns . This is comparable to the English construction "to be going to do sth."

mú wān á čwā`y "she will eat"
yáá wān á čwā`y "I'll eat"

Variants are also documented that can be understood as blurring, such as:

í wāá čwā`y "I will eat"

Subjunctive

The subjunctive is used in certain types of desired and subordinate clauses, especially after the conjunction ɓá "that". It is formed from the subject pronoun, which, in contrast to the normal form, is low-pitched and in the 3rd person. so called mask. has the special form tá, with a stem that is similar to the aorist stem, but has a low tone instead of falling tone in tone class 1.

à nīī ɓá šì čū "he says (aorist) that you (fem.) should eat"
à nīī ɓá šì dàš "he says (aorist) that you (fem.) should hit"

Root forms of some representative verbs

The class is given for each verb, first a number for the tone class and then one of the abbreviations "e" = monosyllabic, "z" = two-syllable, "ay" = stem to -ay; "unr." = irregular.

	class	Aorist	Perfect	Habitational	Verbal nouns
to get	1e	má`t	màtān	máàt	mātí
eat	1e	jí`	jìān	jyáà	jīhí
give	1e	for	fàrān	fáàr	fārí
to buy	1e	gó`n	gònān	gwáàn	gōní
Cook	1e	jí` (h)	jìyān	jyáàh ~ jyáày	jīhí
beat	1e	dá`š	dàšān	dáàš	the I
to dance	1e	dóòr	dòrān	dwáàr	dōōrí
laugh	1z	sīsā`l	sìsàlān	sīsāàl	sìsā`l
collect	1z	sāɓū`t	sàɓùtān	sāɓwāàt	sāɓūtí
to be afraid	1z	šīšēèr	šìšèèrān	šīšyāàr	šìšyēèr
reply	1ay	mátày	màtā`y	máàtā`y	màtāyí
touch	1ay	ŋgyá`y	ŋgyā`y	ŋgyáàʔày	ŋgyāāyí
eat	2e	čū	čwā´n	čwāáy	čwā`y
come	2e	yēs	yēsán	yāás	māyēs
say	2e	nīī	nīyán	nyāáy	mānīī
sit, live	2e	mūn	mūnán	mwāán	māmūn
leap	2e	lūk	lūkán	lwāák	lúkí
to die	2e	mōt	mōtán	mwāát	māmó`t
throw	2e	hwī	hwyā´n	hwyāáy	hwíí
knowledge	2e	sūn	sūnán	swāán	súní
to breathe	2z	nāfōs	nafosan	nāfwāás	nāfós
to thank	2z	pālāŋ	pālāŋán	pālāán	pāláŋí
to catch	2ay	kā`y	ká`y	kāáʔày	kā´yī
see	2ay	šītā`y	šītá`y	šyāátày	šītáyī
to do	2ay	sā`y	sá`y	sāáhāy	māsáyī
want	unr.	fūk	fūkán	fwáàk	fúkí
go	unr.	yú`	fwā´n	wáày	māwān

object

The pronominal object is expressed using suffixes on the verb. The tone of the object suffixes depends on the tone class of the verb. It is medium-low falling for a verb of tone class 1 and high-low falling for a verb of tone class 2:

yáá lūl-hā` "I am asking you (right now)"
í dàšān-hā` "I hit you"
yáá šītáy-sí`s "I see him (just)"
yáá láál-sí`s "I'm calling him (right now)"
tí čū-sí`s "she eats / ate him"

If the verbal noun ends in -i, this is omitted before the (nominal or pronominal) object:

yáá vóhí "I close" - yáá vóh vō "I close a door"
yáá jīhí "I cook" - yáá jīh čā "I cook food"
yáá šītáyī "I see" - yáá šītáy ɗīkí`l "I see a house"
yáá hāláyī "I hear" - yáá hāláy-há` "I hear you"

Falling tones on the last syllable of the verb are often simplified in front of the object (exact rules are not known for this):

í hālā`y "I hear (t) e (aorist)" - í hālāy-há` "I hear (t) e you" - ší hālāy fìndél-í "you (fem.) hear (t) hear the speech"
í hālá`y "I heard (perfect)" - í hāláy-hā` "I heard you"
í dáš-hà "I hit you (aorist)" (from dá`š + hā`)

Adverbials

dative

Another set of suffixes to the verb is used to express the pronominal dative. The tone of these suffixes is mostly medium after verbs of tone class 1 and high after verbs of tone class 2. Here, too, the verbal stem can be simplified:

á fár-ēn "you give / gave me" (from fá`r + ēn)
í fàr-īs "I gave him" (from fàrān + īs)
ɓwè tá fār-ū wéŋ "God give you (subjunctive) happiness"
í nīy-ét "I tell (t) e you"
á nīyán-nìn "you told us"

In verbs with -ay, the dative suffixes appear between the root and the -ay suffix:

há mát-ēn-ày "you answer me" (mátày "answer")
í màt-īs-ày "I answered him"

Also in the progressive the dative suffixes are inserted into the construction. The preposition á on which this construction is based reappears:

yáá yy-éš á āɗūs "I follow you (straight)" (éš "dir (fem.)"; ɗūs "follow", here as verbal nouns with the prefix mā-, the m- of which is omitted)
yáá yá á lál sí`s "I'll call him you" (yá "you", sí`s "him")

Nouns do not form a dative form. The dative can be recognized by the fact that the verb also marks a pronominal dative:

à fàr-īs Áūdù čàá`n
he give-him Audu chicken
"he gave (him, namely) a chicken to Audu"

à gōf-ét nāfú-hí číf-í
he show-her wife-ARTICLE Money-ARTICLE
"he showed (her, namely) the money to the woman"

Dative subject in intransitive verbs

Intransitive verbs often also express their subject in the form of a dative suffix:

kàlà tí mōt-ét "the chameleon died (literally: died himself)"

prepositions

The Daffo has some elementary prepositions:

á "in, to" (local): á wúúr "in the house, at home"
tá (temporal): tá fūlūl "in the night"
tá` "from (her)": tá` Kánò "from Kano (city)"

In addition, complex prepositions are formed by combining an elementary preposition with body part names:

á fō mà "in the mouth (fó) of" = "before"
á fí tī "in the back of" = "on"

As a predicate

An adverbial can serve as a predicate. In this case, a separate set of subject pronouns is used (see above):

ló má kàsúwá-hí hà
meat it market-ARTICLE QUESTION
"is there meat on the market?"

má tī "he is with ..." serves as a translation of the German "he has ...".

negation

The negation is expressed by an element kwa (about the tone of which the documentation makes contradicting statements) at the end of the sentence:

yáā yēs kwà "I'm not coming"

sí fwāák sì hālā`y kwà
they want.HABITATIVE they.SUBJUNCTIVE don't hear
"they don't want to hear"

question

Sentence questions are identified by a particle - (h) à at the end of the sentence:

hú wōrōŋ-à "did you write? (aorist)"
ší hālāy fìndél-í-hà "did you (fem.) hear the speech?"

Some examples of verbal questions:

sàf má ál
Chef er wo
"Where is the village chief?"

à yēs támī
he come when
"When did he come?"

syntax

Basics

The basic word order of the Daffo is subject - verb - object.

The verb must always be preceded by a subject pronoun. This shows the grammatical gender of the subject:

màsārā à yēs
Europeans he come
"the Europeans came"

nāfú tí fá`š ló
woman they roast meat
"the woman roasted meat"

kó ǹzīn tí māgās fwèt
heart my it bad-its very
"my heart became very bad ( i.e .: I became very sad)"

Relative clause

The relative clause is constructed as follows:

Reference word - attribute connector mà or tī (see above) - relative particle má - relative clause

The connection mà-má can be shortened to m̀má.

ɗá`m mà má á fúkí
thing CONNECTOR REL.PARTIKEL you want
"the thing you want"

nāf mà má sí dūn
people KONNEKTOR REL.PARTIKEL they don't-have
"the people who have nothing"

nāfú tī má tí wū māhyāw šàk
Ms. KONNEKTOR REL.PARTIKEL they surpass beauty all
"the woman who surpasses all in beauty / who is most beautiful"

fè m̀-má mí wān á vērí
children KONNEKTOR-REL.PARTIKEL they go to dance
"the children who go to dance "

vocabulary

Some elements from the basic vocabulary:

eye	dīīr
three	yūhún
one	ɗàŋgá`t
eat	čū
woman	nāfú
five	hárá
give	for
go	yú`
big	mgbáŋ
Well	hyāwán
hand	rá
Listen	hālā`y
man	nāáf
mouth	fó
Surname	súm
say	nīī
see	šītā`y
four	púʔ
water	hām
knowledge	sūn
two	fùl

literature

Herrmann Jungraithmayr : The Ron languages. Chadohamite Studies in Northern Nigeria , Glückstadt 1970, pp. 155–230
Uwe Seibert: The Ron from Daffo (Jos-Plateau, Central Nigeria). Morphological, syntactic and text-linguistic structures of a West Chadian language , Verlag Peter Frani, Frankfurt 1998, ISBN 978-3631329924