| Kera | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Chad, Cameroon |
Native speakers | (50,000 cited 1993)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ker |
| Glottolog | kera1255 |
Kera is an East Chadic language spoken by 45,000 people in Southwest Chad and 6,000 people in North Cameroon.
It was called "Tuburi" by Greenberg, a name shared with Tupuri.
Grammar
Kera is a subject–verb–object language, using prepositions. It uses exclusively borderline case-marking.
Phonology
The phonetic symbols and charts used are from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
Consonants[2]
| Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | c | k | ɡ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | h | |||||||
| Approximant | j | |||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||
Vowels[3][4]
Kera's vowels are, including allophones:
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| close | i | ɨ | u |
| mid | e / ɛ | o / ɔ | |
| open | a / ə | ||
But can also be expressed as:
- High The tongue is positioned near the top of the mouth.
- Round The lips are rounded while the vowel is pronounced.
- Front The tongue is positioned at the front of the mouth.
| not round front | not round central | round back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| high | i | ɨ | u |
| not high | e / ɛ | a / ə | o / ɔ |
Kera has vowel harmony.
In Kera, many words are required to only have vowels in the high or not high vowel class. For example, a word may have any of the vowels i ə u or any of the vowels e a o, but words containing both, e.g. words with i and o, are prohibited.
References
- ^ Kera at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ^ Atanga, Lilian Lem; Ellece, Sibonile Edith; Litosseliti, Lia; Sunderland, Jane (2013). Gender and Language in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tradition, Struggle and Change. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 82. ISBN 9789027218742.
- ^ "Vowels in harmony - Kera". SIL International. 2013-02-08. Retrieved 2019-06-02.
- ^ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3aa8/052c008ef2d5b38f0146cf59c5d2641b8795.pdf ATR allophones or undershoot in Kera? Retrieved 2019-06-02.
External links