Koyraboro Senni
| Koyraboro Senni | |
|---|---|
| كࣷيْرَبࣷرࣷ سٜنِّ | |
| Native to | Mali |
| Region | East of Timbuktu, Gao |
| Ethnicity | (850,000 (2007?)[1]) |
Native speakers | 430,000 (2007)[2] 300,000 monolingual (2007)[2] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ses |
| Glottolog | koyr1242 |
 | |
Koyraboro Senni (Koroboro Senni, Koyra Senni or Gao Senni) is a member of the Songhay languages of Mali and is spoken by some 400,000 people along the Niger River from the town of Gourma-Rharous, east of Timbuktu, through Bourem, Gao and Ansongo to the Mali–Niger border.
The expression "koyra-boro senn-i" denotes "the language of the town dwellers", as opposed to nomads like the Tuareg people and other transhumant people.
Although Koyraboro Senni is associated with settled towns, it is a cosmopolitan language which has spread east and west of Gao, to the Fula people living at the Mali–Niger border and to the Bozo people of the Niger River. East of Timbuktu, Koyra Senni gives way relatively abruptly to the closely related Koyra Chiini.
Geographic distribution
[edit]The majority of speakers live in the Gao Region of Mali. It is also spoken in other parts of Mali and in other countries.
Phonology
[edit]Consonants
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p[a] | t | t͡ʃ | k | ʔ[b] |
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ[c] | h | |
| voiced | z | ʒ[c] | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | o oː | |
| Open | a aː |
Nasalized realizations of vowel sounds may also occur, but they are rare among different dialects.
Orthography
[edit]Table below illustrates the Latin alphabet for Koyraboro Senni in Mali, as standardized by "DNAFLA".
| A a | B b | C c | D d | E e | F f | G g | H h | I i | J j | K k | L l | M m | N n |
| [a] | [b] | [t͡ʃ] | [d] | [e] | [f] | [ɡ] | [h] | [i] | [d͡ʒ] | [k] | [l] | [m] | [n] |
| Ɲ ɲ | Ŋ ŋ | O o | P p | R r | S s | Š š | T t | U u | W w | Y y | Z z | Ž ž | |
| [ɲ] | [ŋ] | [o] | [p] | [r] | [s] | [ʃ] | [t] | [u] | [w] | [j] | [z] | [ʒ] |
Table below illustrates the Arabic (Ajami) alphabet for Koyraboro Senni, based on UNESCO.BREDA report on standardization of Arabic script in published in 1987 in Bamako.[5][6]
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ا ( - ) [∅]/[ʔ] |
ب (B b) [b] |
ت (T t) [t] |
ٺ (C c) [t͡ʃ] |
ث (S s) [s] |
ج (J j) [d͡ʒ] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ح (H h) [h] |
خ (Kh kh) [x] |
ݗ (Ŋ ŋ) [ŋ] |
د (D d) [d] |
ذ (Z z) [z] |
ر (R r) [r] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ز (Z z) [z] |
ژ (Ž ž) [ʒ] |
س (S s) [s] |
ش (Š š) [ʃ] |
ص (S s) [s] |
ض (D d) [d] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ط (T t) [t] |
ظ (Z z) [z] |
ع ( - ) [ʔ] |
غ (G g) [ɡ] |
ݝ (G g) [ɡ] |
ڢ (F f) [f] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ݠ (P p) [p] |
ڧ (K k) [k] |
ك (K k) [k] |
ل (L l) [l] |
م (M m) [m] |
ن (N n) [n] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ه (H h) [h] |
و (W w) [w] |
ؤ ( - ) [ʔ] |
ي (W w) [j] |
ئ ( - ) [ʔ] |
ࢩ (Ɲ ɲ) [ɲ] |
| A | E | I | O | U |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short Vowels | ||||
| اَ | اٜ | اِ | اࣷ | اُ |
| Long Vowels | ||||
| Aa | Ee | Ii | Oo | Uu |
| آ | اٜيـ / اٜي | اِيـ / اِي | اࣷو | اُو |
| a | e | i | o | u |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short Vowels | ||||
| ◌َ | ◌ٜ | ◌ِ | ◌ࣷ | ◌ُ |
| Long Vowels | ||||
| aa | ee | ii | oo | uu |
| ◌َا / ◌َـا | ◌ٜيـ / ◌ٜـيـ ◌ٜي / ◌ٜـي |
◌ِيـ / ◌ِـيـ ◌ِي / ◌ِـي |
◌ࣷو / ◌ࣷـو | ◌ُو / ◌ُـو |
References
[edit]- Jeffrey Heath: Grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni, the Songhay of Gao. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln 1999. ISBN 978-3-89645-106-4
External links
[edit]- ^ Koyraboro Senni at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
- ^ a b Koyraboro Senni at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ This map is based on classification from Glottolog and data from Ethnologue.
- ^ République du Mali, Direction nationale de l’alphabétisation fonctionnelle et de la linguistique appliquée, Alphabets et règles d'orthographe des langues nationales, Bamako, DNAFLA, 1993
- ^ a b Chtatou, Mohamed (1992). Using Arabic script in writing the languages of the peoples of Muslim Africa. Institute of African Studies, Mohammed V University.
- ^ a b Kew, Jonathan (2 June 2003). Proposal to encode Arabic-script letters for African languages (PDF).
