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by | Mar 16, 2018 | Hosta

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Mafa is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria by the Mafa people.

Dialects

Mafa is widely spoken in the department of Mayo-Tsanaga from Mokolo to the north. Mafa includes the following dialects.[2]

  • Central Mafa in Koza commune and in Mokolo town
  • West Mafa in the northwest of Mokolo Commune (Magoumaz)
  • East Mafa in the northeast (Soulede and Roua communes)

There are 136,000 speakers in Cameroon.[2]

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i iː ɨ ʉ u uː
Open-mid ɛ œ ɔ
Open a

Consonants

Labial Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain sibilant plain lab. plain lab.
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Stop/
Affricate 		voiceless p t t͡s t͡ʃ k kʷ ʔ
voiced b d d͡z d͡ʒ ɡ ɡʷ
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ⁿd͡z ⁿd͡ʒ ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ
implosive ɓ ɗ
Fricative voiceless f ɬ s ʃ h hʷ
voiced v ɮ z ʒ ɣ ɣʷ
Approximant l j w
Trill r
  • /ᵑɡ/ is heard as a velar nasal [ŋ] when in word-final position.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ Mafa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b Binam Bikoi, Charles, ed. (2012). Atlas linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) [Linguistic Atlas of Cameroon]. Atlas linguistique de l'Afrique centrale (ALAC) (in French). Vol. 1: Inventaire des langues. Yaoundé: CERDOTOLA. ISBN 9789956796069.
  3. ^ Barreteau, Daniel; Le Bléis, Yves (1990). Lexique Mafa: Langue de la Famille Tchadique Parlée au Cameroun. Paris: Éditions de l'Orstom.


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