Kenga
| Kenga | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Chad (Prefecture: Guera ) | |
| speaker | 40,000 (1997) | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
ssa |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
kyq |
|
Kenga is one of the Sara Bagirmi languages, which are part of the Central Sudan branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages .
It is spoken by 40,000 people in 52 villages around Bitkine ( Guera region).
The Kenga is an SVO language . It has neither gender nor nominal classes . The verb system includes a dozen different tense and aspect forms.
Phonology
The kenga consonant system looks like this:
| labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
| Plosives | unvoiced | p | t | c | k |
| voiced | b | d | j | G | |
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||
| Fricatives | unvoiced | s | |||
| voiced | z | ||||
| Liquid | l / r | ||||
| Half vowels | w | y | |||
It should be noted that the voiced alveolar fricative / z / in general and the palatal nasal / ɲ / are very rare on the letters.
The kenga has three tones (high, medium and low), they distinguish between words and different verb forms, e.g. B. áásà HT “you quit” vs. ààsā TM "he ends".
grammar
The Kenga has the following verb forms - in the scheme PN means a prefix that indicates person and number :
| Neutral | PN-V | m- ɔ y ɔ | I hide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perfect | PN-V-ga | m- ɔ y-ga | i hid |
| preterite | PN-Vo | m- ɔ y-o | I hide |
| past continuous | PN-Vo-ga | m- ɔ y-o-ga | I was hiding |
| Progressive | PN-V kV | m- ɔ y k- ɔ y ɔ | I'm hiding |
| Future tense | PN-kV | mk- ɔ y ɔ | i will hide |
| imperative | V | ɔ y ɔ | hide! |
Person and number are indicated with prefixes and suffixes and partly by sound; the table shows the conjugation of the simple form (neutral):
| 1sg | m- | m-áásā | I finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2sg | H- | áásā | you finish |
| 3sg | T- | ààsā | he finishes |
| 1pl | j- | j-áásā | We end |
| 2pl | H- -ki | áás-ki | you ended |
| 3pl | T- | ààsā | they finish |
swell
- Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition . Dallas, Tex .: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/ .
- Palayer, Pierre et al. 2004. Dictionary kenga (Tchad) . Paris: SELAF.
- Vandame, Charles. 1968. Grammaire kenga . Lyon: Afrique et Langage (Études linguistiques 2).