| Yeyi | |
| Nativename: | Shiyɛyi |
| States: | Namibia, Botswana |
| Region: | along the Okavango River |
| Speakers: | 55,000 |
| Date: | 2001 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Southern Bantoid |
| Fam7: | Bantu (Zone R) |
| Iso3: | yey |
| Glotto: | yeyi1239 |
| Glottorefname: | Yeyi |
| Guthrie: | R.40 (R.41) |
| Notice: | IPA |
Yeyi (autoethnonym Shiyɛyi) is a Bantu language spoken by many of the approximately 50,000 Yeyi people along the Okavango River in Namibia and Botswana. Yeyi, influenced by Juu languages, is one of several Bantu languages along the Okavango with clicks. Indeed, it has the largest known inventory of clicks of any Bantu language, with dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral articulations. Though most of its older speakers prefer Yeyi in normal conversation, it is being gradually phased out in Botswana by a popular move towards Tswana, with Yeyi only being learned by children in a few villages. Yeyi speakers in the Caprivi Strip of north-eastern Namibia, however, retain Yeyi in villages (including Linyanti), but may also speak the regional lingua franca, Lozi.
The main dialect is called Shirwanga. A slight majority of Botswana Yeyi are monolingual in the national language, Tswana, and the majority of the rest are bilingual.
Yeyi appears to be a divergent lineage of Bantu.[1] It is usually classified as a member of the R Zone Bantu languages. The language has been phonetically influenced by the Ju languages, though it is no longer in contact with them.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ |
| Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/ Affricate | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | |||
| pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| Liquid | pronounced as /ink/ ~ pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||
| pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||
Other palatalized consonant sounds that can occur are pronounced as //bʲ ⁿdʲ lʲ//.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | |||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| aspirated | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| ejective | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| aspirated | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| ejective | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | plain | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aspirated | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| nasalized (asp.) | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| voiced | plain | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| nasalized | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| prenasalized | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
Yeyi may have up to four click types, dental pronounced as /ǀ/, alveolar pronounced as /ǃ/, palatal pronounced as /ǂ/, and lateral pronounced as /ǁ/. However, the actual number of clicks is disputed, as researchers disagree on how many series of manner and phonation the language contrasts.
Sommer & Voßen (1992) listed the following manners, shown as the palatal series:
| Click | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /ᵏǂʰ/ | aspirated | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǂ/ | tenuis | |
| pronounced as /ᶢǂ/ | voiced | |
| pronounced as /ᵑǂ/ | nasal | |
| pronounced as /ŋᶢǂ/ | prenasalized | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǂʼ/ | oral ejective | |
| pronounced as /ᵑǂˀ/ | nasal glottalized | |
| pronounced as /ǂqχ/ | uvular fricative | |
| pronounced as /ǂqʼ/ | uvular ejective |
Fulop et al. (2002) studied the clicks of a limited vocabulary sample with 13 Yeyi speakers who were not from the core speaking area. The series they found are:
| Click | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /ᵏǂʰ/ | aspirated | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǂ/ | tenuis | |
| pronounced as /ᶢǂ/ | voiced | |
| pronounced as /ᵑǂ/ | nasal | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǂʼ/ | oral ejective | |
| pronounced as /ǂqʼ/ | uvular ejective |
Miller (2011), in a comparative study with other languages, interprets their results as follows,[3]
| Click | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /ᵏǂʰ/ | aspirated | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǂ/ | tenuis | |
| pronounced as /ᶢǂ/ | voiced | |
| pronounced as /ᵑǂ/ | nasal | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǂʼ/ | oral ejective | |
| pronounced as /ᵑ̊ǂˀ/ | glottalized nasal | |
| pronounced as /ǂ͡qχ/ | lingual–pulmonic | |
| pronounced as /ǂ͡qχʼ/ | lingual–glottalic |
Unfortunately, the speakers interviewed were not from the core Yeyi-speaking area, and they often disagreed on which clicks to use. Although the six dental clicks (pronounced as /ǀ/ etc.) were nearly universal, only one of the lateral clicks was (the voiced click pronounced as /ᶢǁ/). The alveolar clicks (pronounced as /ǃ/ etc.) were universal apart from the ejective, which was only attested from one speaker, but two of the palatal clicks were only used by half the speakers, at least in the sample vocabulary. The missing palatal and lateral clicks were substituted with alveolar or sometimes dental clicks (palatals only), and the missing ejective alveolar was substituted with a glottalized alveolar. Both of these patterns are consistent with studies of click loss, though it is possible that these speakers maintain these clicks in other words. 23 of the 24 possible permutations were attested in the sample vocabulary by at least one speaker, the exception being the ejective lateral click pronounced as /
Seidel (2008) says that Yeyi has three click types, dental pronounced as /ǀ/, alveolar pronounced as /ǃ/, and, in two words only, lateral pronounced as /ǁ/. There are three basic series, tenuis, aspirated, and voiced, any of which may be prenasalized:
| Click | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /ᵏǃʰ/ | aspirated | |
| pronounced as /ᵏǃ/ | tenuis | |
| pronounced as /ᶢǃ/ | voiced | |
| pronounced as /ŋᵏǃʰ/ | prenasalized aspirated | |
| pronounced as /ŋᵏǃ/ | prenasalized tenuis | |
| pronounced as /ŋᶢǃ/ | prenasalized voiced |
A Yeyi Talking Dictionary was produced by Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.