| Moro | |
| Nativename: | Dhimorong |
| States: | Sudan |
| Region: | South Kordofan |
| Ethnicity: | Moro Nuba |
| Date: | 2022 |
| Ref: | e27 |
| Dia1: | Ulba |
| Dia2: | Laiyen |
| Dia3: | Nubwa |
| Dia4: | Werria |
| Dia6: | Nderre |
| Dia7: | Longorban |
| Dia8: | Thetogovela |
| Script: | Latin alphabet |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Kordofanian |
| Fam3: | Talodi–Heiban |
| Fam4: | Heiban |
| Fam6: | Western |
| Map2: | Lang Status 60-DE.svg |
| Iso3: | mor |
| Glotto: | moro1285 |
| Glottorefname: | Moro |
Moro is a Kordofanian language spoken in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan.[1] It is part of the Western group of West Central Heiban Kordofonian languages and belongs to the Niger-Congo phylum.[2] In 1982 there were an estimated 30,000 Moro-speakers. This was before the second Sudan civil war and therefore the recent number of speakers might differ. There can be noted an influence of Arabic and it is suspected that today approximately a fourth of all Moro vocabulary has a relation or an origin in the Arabic language.[3]
There are different intonations in the Moro language. Usually the vowels “e”, “a” and “o” have a lower tone, while the vowels “i”, “u” and “ʌ” have a higher tone. The vowel “ə” is a Schwa vowel and therefore neutral.
One can find vowel harmony, palatalization of dental stops, resistance to deletion in vowel hiatus resolution and imposition of a partially replaceable tone patterns within the language. However it is important to note that the latter two are unique to the causative in Moro (9;2,11).[4]
Moro has a seven vowel inventory,[5] [6] schematized in the table below. [ə] can be epenthetic or a reduced version of the peripheral vowels /i e o u/; it also appears in roots with no obvious source of reduction.[7] The behaviour of the schwa [ə] in Moro vowel harmony has been taken as a reason to posit two [ə] vowels in Moro - a higher one that raises vowels, and a lower one that does not.
| High | i | u | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | e | ə | ʌ | o | |
| Low | a | ||||
The consonantal inventory of Moro is given below.
| Stop | p b | t̪ d̪ | t d | k g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affricate | ʧ ʤ | ||||||
| Fricative | f v | ð | s | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Flap | ɾ | ɽ | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Glide | w | j |
Moro has a 'one-step' height vowel harmony system, in which the lower vowels /e a o/ of affixes are raised to their high counterparts [i ʌ u] if the root vowel is high. In addition to root- or stem-controlled harmony, Moro also exhibits a dominant-recessive harmony pattern in which certain extension suffixes trigger raising of preceding prefixes and root vowels, and a following suffix; these harmony-triggering suffixes are the causative -i, applicative -ət̪, and passive -ən.
Some Moro roots containing [ə] trigger vowel harmony, while others do not; similarly, while the applicative and passive suffix both contain [ə] and trigger vowel harmony, Moro exhibits other suffixes containing [ə], such as the antipassive -əꟈ, which do not. Accoustice studies confirm that the schwas which trigger vowel harmony in Moro show a significantly lower F1 formant than those which do not, and that schwas in raised vowel contexts in Moro also exhibit significantly lower F1 formants than those in non-raised contexts. As such, some scholars argue that Moro includes two schwa vowels: a high schwa, which triggers vowel harmony, and a low schwa, which does not.
Moro can be categorized into 18 noun classes: 8 major, 5 minor and 5 unpaired. Most of these classes have their individual class prefix, singular prefix and concord as well as plural prefix and concord.[8]
| Semantic ID | Class prefix | Singular prefix | Singular concord | Plural prefix | Plural concord | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| people | g/l | ?/w | G | L | L | |
| animals/body parts | l/ŋ | L | L | Ñ | Ñ | |
| trees | ꟈ/g | Ꟈ | Ꟈ | W | G | |
| common things | g/n | ? | Ꟈ | N | N | |
| Things of shapes | l/ŋ | l/ɽ/ɽr | l/ɽ/ɽr | Ŋ | Ŋ | |
| Long things | ꟈ/r | Ꟈ | Ꟈ | R | R | |
| / | g/n | Ꟈ | Ꟈ | ? | G | |
| Large and harmful things | ꟈ/j | Ꟈ | Ꟈ | y | y | |
| Domestic/small animals | ŋ/ŋ | Ŋ- | Ŋ- | Ñ | Ñ | |
| Liquids and abstract nouns | ŋ | Ŋ- | Ŋ- | |||
| Emotions | ꟈ | ꟈ | Ꟈ | |||
| Cow, goat, irregular nouns | r/j | r | Y | |||
| Foreign words | j/j | Y | y |
There are some identified rules for the construction of the plural according to its noun class:
Moro language has many compound adjectives, that have their origin in the same root. One can find comparative adjectives as well as superlatives however, these are normally translated in “very, very”.[9]
Compound adjectives are formed with a suffix as following:
| Gaicia | Bad | |
| Gaiciaŋaiyo | Ugly | |
| Gaicianano | Sad |
To construct the comparative of a simple adjective, one must change the last vowel of the adjective into “-ə -“ and then add the suffix “-tu”:
| Gabəco | White | |
| Gabəcətu | Very white |
To form the comparative of compound adjectives one must first form the comparative of the first part of the adjective and then add the suffix:
| Gamenano | Happy | |
| Gamətunano | Very happy |
To construct the superlative there are several opportunities:
Example: “geꟈe” (= green) turns into “geꟈeꟈe” (=very, very green)
Example: “gapa” (= light) turns into “gapapeꟈ” (= very, very light)
Example: “gafalo” (= low) turns into “gaffalo” (= very, very low) (2.1; 1-2)[9]
There are eight Subject pronouns in Moro but each in two different variations. The exact meaning of these variations have not yet been determined.
| Variation 1 | Variation 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| I | ñi | Igënəñi | |
| You (singular) | ŋa | Aganəŋa | |
| He/she/it | ŋu | Gënəŋu | |
| We (dual) | Ləŋ | Lëləŋ | |
| We (inclusive) | Nëndr/lëndr | Nëndr | |
| We (exclusive) | Nanda/landa | ñagananda | |
| You (plural) | ñaŋ | ñaganəñaŋ | |
| They | ŋulu | lënəŋulu |
Each subject pronoun has its own agreement prefix. These prefixes can vary in accordance to the tense or the aspect of the verb.[10]
In the present and past tense they are attached to the particle “ga“ and used as (exemplified with the verb “tu” = “to drink”) following:
| I | i- | Ñi igatu | I was drinking | |
| You (singular) | a- | Ŋa agatu | You were drinking | |
| He/she/it | / (concord agreem.) | Ŋu gatu | He was drinking | |
| We (dual) | La-/lə- | Ləŋ lagatu | We were drinking | |
| We (inclusive) | La-/lə- | Nëndr lagatr | We were drinking | |
| We (exclusive) | ña- | Nanda ñagatu | We were drinking | |
| You (plural) | ña- | ñan ñagatu | You were drinking | |
| They | / (concord agreem.) | Ŋulu latu | They were drinking |
The morphophonology changes when the suffix “-r” is added to the end of a verb:
For the future tense the subject prefixes that are mentioned above will are added to the auxiliary of the future verb. The main verb of the future tense has different subject prefixes.
There have been identified following rules:
The subject prefix of the future tense is exemplified in the following using the auxiliary “-gidi” and the verb “tu” (to drink):
| Future tense SP | Example | Translation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | ñi-/ ñe- | Igiꟈi ñiti | I will drink | |
| You (singular) | ŋa- | Agiꟈi nati | You will drink | |
| He/she/it | Aŋə- | Giꟈi aŋəti | He will drink | |
| We (dual) | Alə- | Lagiꟈi aləti | We will drink | |
| We (inclusive) | Alə + r- | Lagiꟈr alətr | We will drink | |
| We (exclusive) | ña- | ñagiꟈi ñati | We will drink | |
| You (plural) | ña- | ñagiꟈi ñati | You will drink | |
| They | Alə- | Liꟈi aləti | They will drink |
Moro also has a set of eight object pronouns for each tense: In case of the past tense, the object infix will be added to the end of the verb, while in case of the present tense it is inserted between the tense marker “ga” and the verb stem.[10]
| OP Present | OP Past | OP Future | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Iña | ñe/ ñ i | ñə | |
| You (singular) | ŋa | Aŋa | ŋa | |
| He/she/it | Ma | Ma | Ma | |
| We (dual) | Ndə | Nde | Ndə | |
| We (inclusive) | Ndə | Ndr | Ndə | |
| We (exclusive) | Ndə | Nde | Ndə | |
| You (plural) | Ndə | Nde | Ndə | |
| They | lə | Lo | lə |
Also with object pronouns there are some morphophonemic changes:
In case of the past tense, the object infix will be added to the end of the verb, while in case of the present tense it is inserted between the tense marker “ga” and the verb stem:
Past tense; verb: “ma” – “gamənde” (= married us)
Present tense; verb: “ma” – “gandəma” (= marries us)
Future tense; verb: “ma” – “giꟈi aŋəndəme” (= will marry us)
Again, compound verbs are handled slightly differently. While in the present and future tense they can take the same agreements as simple verbs, in the past tense the object pronoun is inserted before the “-alo” or “-ano”.[11]
Researches could identify some pre- and postpositions in the Moro language. The postposition “-ŋa” can be translated to “with” and can be added at least to verbs:
Example: “ŋenŋa nəwujənu” means “talk with parables”
In other cases the prepositions “o-“ for singular and “lə-“ for plural can express that someone is from a certain place:
Example: “tofəgəlla” (= a place); “otofəgəlla” (= a person from that place); “lətofəgəlla” (= people from that place”[12]
In Moro there are so far three identified tenses: the past, the present and the future. While the future- and the past tense take tense markers, the future tense comes with an additional auxiliary.[13]
The past tense is usually used at the start of a story and often follows the word “when”. Additionally, it describes an action from the past that is still ongoing in the present. It is important to note that if a story is started with the past tense it indicates that other actions of the same time are in the past tense too. The present tense is used to describe actions that happened at the same time as the one before and if the word “when” is used, it changes its meaning to “while”. Finally, it describes new situations that have not been there before. The future tense is used for the expression of an intention to do something.[14]
The tense marker for the past tense is “ga” and it comes with little exceptions:
| Verb root | Verb in past tense | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| -tu|Gatu|Drank|-|-erido | Gerido | Walked | |
| -naico | Ganaico | Gave |
For the present tense, the tense marker remains “ga-“ but there are more rules regarding the changes of vowels: