Sar language : Phonology Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sar language

Central Sudanic language spoken in Chad

Sar
Madjingay
Native to	Chad
Native speakers	(180,000 cited 1993 census)^[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Central Sudanic Bongo–Bagirmi Sara languages East Sar
Dialects	Sar Nar
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`mwm`
Glottolog	`sarr1246`

Sar or Sara, also known as Madjingay and Sara Madjingay is a Bongo–Bagirmi language of southern Chad, and the lingua franca of regional capital of Sarh.

Phonology

The consonants are as follows.^[2]

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Postalveolar /Palatal	Velar
Plosive/ Affricate	tenuis	p	t			k
	voiced	b	d		d͡ʒ	ɡ
	prenasalized	m͡b	n͡d		n͡dʒ	ŋ͡ɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative			s
Nasal		m	n
Liquid	oral		l	ɽ
Liquid	nasalized			ɽ̃
Semi-vowel	oral				j	w
Semi-vowel	nasalized				j̃

Vowels and nasal vowels are as follows:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ	ɨ	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ	(ə)	o õ
Mid		(ə)	ɔ
Open		a ã

/o, e/ can also be heard as [ə].^[3]

There are three tones.^[4]^[5]

Tone	Example	Gloss
high	ɡáŋɡá	drum
mid	māl	scavenger
low	jàbə̀	hippopotamus
nasal	tã	sauce

References

^ Sar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ (in French) Fournier, Maurice, Les consonnes du sar, dans Études phonologiques tchadiennes (Jean-Pierre Caprile, éd.), pp. 37-44, Paris, SELAF, 1977, ISBN 2-85297-019-8
^ Keegan, John M. (2014). Lexique Sar. The Eastern Sara Languages: Cuenca: Morkeg Books.
^ (in French) Moundo Ndimajibay, Nei-Balway, Les limites des modifications en sar, dans Études phonologiques tchadiennes (Jean-Pierre Caprile, éd.), pp. 45-58, Paris, SELAF, 1977, ISBN 2-85297-019-8
^ "PanAfriL10n - PanAfrLoc - Sara". PanAfrican Localisation Resource Wiki. Retrieved 2017-03-07.