| Mpadə | |
| States: | Cameroon, Chad |
| Region: | Far North Province, Cameroon; west Chad |
| Speakers: | 16,000 in Cameroon |
| Date: | 2004 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Afro-Asiatic |
| Fam2: | Chadic |
| Fam3: | Biu–Mandara |
| Fam4: | Kotoko (B.1) |
| Fam5: | North |
| Iso3: | mpi |
| Glotto: | mpad1242 |
| Glottoname: | Mpade |
| Glotto2: | ngal1301 |
| Glottoname2: | Ngala |
| Glottorefname2: | Ngala of Lake Chad |
| Notice: | IPA |
Mpadə is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and southwestern Chad. Dialects are Bodo, Biamo, Digam, Mpade (Makari), Shoe (Shewe), and Woulki.[1]
The language is sometimes known as Makari, after one of the towns where it is spoken. Ngala further west (as described by Barth) once spoke a dialect similar to Makari, but it was moribund by the 1920s, the people having shifted to Kanuri.
In Cameroon, Mpade is spoken throughout the northern end of the Logone-et-Chari department (Far North Region), adjacent to Lake Chad and centered on Makari (the northern part of Makari arrondissement as well as in Fotokol and Hilé Alifa arrondissements, and the northern part of Goulfey arrondissement). It is also spoken in Chad and Nigeria, it has a total population of 12,000 speakers (SIL 2000).[2]
Mpade has the following consonants.[3]
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialized | |||||||
| Stops and affricates | Voiceless | pronounced as /p/ | pronounced as /t/ | pronounced as /tʃ/ | pronounced as /k/ | pronounced as /kʷ/ | ||
| Voiced | pronounced as /b/ | pronounced as /d/ | pronounced as /dʒ/ | pronounced as /ɡ/ | pronounced as /ɡʷ/ | |||
| Ejective | pronounced as /tsʼ/ | pronounced as /tʃʼ/ | pronounced as /kʼ/ | pronounced as /kʷʼ/ | ||||
| Implosive | pronounced as /ɓ/ | pronounced as /ɗ/ | ||||||
| Prenasalized | pronounced as /mb/ | pronounced as /nd/ | pronounced as /ŋɡ/ | |||||
| Fricatives | Voiceless | pronounced as /f/ | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /ʃ/ | pronounced as /h/ | |||
| Voiced | pronounced as /z/ | |||||||
| Nasals | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | ||||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /l/ | |||||||
| Trill | pronounced as /r/ | |||||||
| Semivowels | pronounced as /j/ | pronounced as /w/ | ||||||
Mpade has the following vowels.[3]
| front | back unrounded | back rounded | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | pronounced as /i/ | pronounced as /ɨ/ | pronounced as /u/ | |
| Non-High | pronounced as /e/ | pronounced as /a/ | pronounced as /o/ |