Masalit language explained

Masalit
Nativename:	Kanaa Masarak
States:	Chad, Sudan
Region:	Ouaddaï, Sila (Chad), West Darfur, South Darfur (Sudan),
Ethnicity:	Masalit
Date:	2019–2022
Ref:	e27
Script:	Latin
Familycolor:	Nilo-Saharan
Fam2:	Maban
Fam3:	Masalit languages
Lc1:	mls
Ld1:	Masalit
Lc2:	mdg
Ld2:	Massalat
Glotto:	nucl1440
Glottoname:	Nuclear Masalit
Glottorefname:	Masalit
Glotto2:	mass1262
Glottoname2:	Massalat
Elp:	577
Elpname:	Massalat

Masalit (autonym Masala/Masara;) is a Nilo-Saharan language of the Maban language group spoken by the Masalit people in Ouaddaï Region, Chad and West Darfur, Sudan.

Masalit, known as the Massalat, moved west into central-eastern Chad. Their ethnic population in Chad was as of the 1993 census, but only 10 speakers of their language were reported in 1991.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Close-mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Open-mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Open		pronounced as /link/

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Stop/ Affricate		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Fricative		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)	pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)
Trill			pronounced as /link/
Lateral			pronounced as /link/
Approximant				pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
				pronounced as /link/

• It has been stated that occasional click sounds pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ may occur, however; they are considered to be rare.
• Sounds pronounced as //r, l, m, k// can occur as geminated pronounced as /[rː, lː, mː, kː]/.
• Sounds /t, m, n, ŋ/ can occur as palatalized [tʲ, mʲ, nʲ, ŋʲ] before front vowels.
• pronounced as //z, x// only occur as a result of words of Arabic origin.
• pronounced as /link/ is not a phonemic sound, and is only heard before word-initial vowels.
• Sounds pronounced as //p, ɥ, v// only occur in word-initial position.^[1]

Sociolects

The Masalit language has two sociolects:

• "Heavy" Masalit, spoken by higher-ranking people and those in the countryside, with a complicated agglutinative grammar
• "Light" Masalit, spoken particularly in the home and in the market, with a somewhat simplified grammatical structure and many borrowings from Sudanese Arabic, the regional lingua franca and language of education.

External links

• The Lost Languages, Found in New York - NYTimes.com

Further reading

• Web site: Abdo . Alsadig Adam . Contrastive analysis between Masalit and English language . Department of Linguistics . University of Khartoum . https://web.archive.org/web/20160305170253/http://khartoumspace.uofk.edu:8080/bitstream/handle/123456789/2274/Contrastive%20Analysis%20Between%20Masalit%20and%20English%20Language.pdf?sequence=1 . 5 March 2016 . November 2013.
• Edgar . John . Masalit stories . African Languages and Cultures . January 1990 . 3 . 2 . 127–148 . 10.1080/09544169008717716 . 1771718 . Taylor & Francis.
• Jakobi . Angelika . Edgar, John: A Masalit Grammar. With Notes on Other Languages of Darfur and Wadai. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1989. 121 pp., map, tab., fig. (Sprache und Oralität in Afrika, 3) Preis: DM 59- . Anthropos . 1991 . 86 . 4–6 . 599–601 . de . Nomos Verlag . 40463695.

Notes and References

1. Book: Edgar, John. A Masalit Grammar: With Notes on other languages of Darfur and Wadai. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. 1989.