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| Mbelime | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Benin |
| Native speakers | 40,000 (2006) |
| Language family | Niger–Congo? |
| Official status | |
| Recognised minority language in |  Benin |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mql |
| Glottolog | mbel1240 |
Mbelime, or Niende, is an Eastern Oti-Volta Gur language of northwestern Benin. Mbelime is spoken by approximately 131,000 people. There is a Mbelime dictionary.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Apical | Palatal | Velar | Labial- velar |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | k͡p | |
| voiced | b | ɖ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Fricative | f | s | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
- /ɖ/ can be realized as [ɖ], [ɭ], or [ɽ] between vowels.
- /k͡p/ tends to be realized as .
- /m/ and /n/ assimilate to following consonants, e.g., [ɳ] before [ɖ] and [ŋ] before [k].
Vowels
Mbelime has 7 oral vowels and 5 nasal vowels.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | ĩ | ũ | |
| Open-mid | ɛ̃ | ɔ̃ | |
| Open | ã |
Notes
- Mbelime at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Roberts, David; Boyd, Ginger; Merz, Johannes; Vydrin, Valentin (2020). "Quantifying written ambiguities in tone languages: A comparative study of Elip, Mbelime, and Eastern Dan". Language Documentation & Conservation. 14: 108–138. ISSN 1934-5275.
- Merz, Johannes (2017). Frictions et inversion de modernité: Portrait de la Commune de Cobly dans l'Atacora du Bénin (Report). SIL Electronic Working Papers (in French). Vol. 2017–001.
- Sambiéni, N. Bienvenue; Merz, Johannes; Merz, Sharon, eds. (14 December 2023) . Dictionnaire mbèlimè. Rough draft. SIL International. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
- Neukom 2004, p. 5.
- ^ Neukom 2004, p. 6.
- ^ Neukom 2004, p. 7.
References
- Neukom, Lukas (2004). Esquisse grammaticale du mbèlimè, langue voltaïque du Bénin. Arbeiten des Seminars für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (in French). Vol. 18. Zürich: ASAS. OCLC 85361935.
Further reading
- Hatfield, Deborah H.; McHenry, Michael (2011). A sociolinguistic survey of the Mbelime language area (Report). SIL Electronic Survey Reports. Vol. 2011–010. Dallas, TX: SIL International.
- Kombetto, N. N. Simon; Taouéma, P. K. Philippe; Sanhouegoua, D. Bernard; Merz, Johannes; Sambiéni, N. Bienvenue; Merz, Sharon (2017). Guide de l'orthographe mbèlimè suivant la réforme de 2017 (in French). ISBN 978-99919-818-2-6.
- Melick, Christina M. (2012). Tone in the Mbelime Verb System (MA thesis). Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics. ISBN 978-1-55671-341-5.
- Rietkerk, Dieke (2000). "Tone on Mbelime verbs". Cahiers voltaı̈ques/Gur papers. 5: 141–147.
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| Indigenous languages |
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| Gur languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Senufo |
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| Kulango | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wara–Natyoro | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Others | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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