Toro-tegu Dogon
Tɔrɔ tegu
RegionMali
Native speakers
(2,900 cited 1998)[1]
Niger–Congo?
  • Dogon
    • Plains
      • Toro-tegu Dogon
Language codes
ISO 639-3dtt
Glottologtoro1253

The Toro language, Tɔrɔ tegu 'Mountain speech', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closest to the prestige variety of Dogon, Jamsay tegu, though speakers deny they are related and understand little of it. (They understand nothing of the Dogon languages on the escarpment or plateau.) Hochstetler report difficulties in comprehension between Tɔrɔ tegu and one of the western Plains Dogon languages, Tomo kan.

Phonology

Consonants

Toro-tegu Dogon consonant phonemes[2]
Labial Alveolar Alveopalatal Velar
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop voiceless p t tʃ k
voiced b d dʒ ɡ
Fricative s
Approximant w l j
Nasalized Sonorant w̃ r̃ j̃
Trill r

Vowels

Vowel Phonemes
Short Oral Long Oral Long Nasal
u uː ũː
o oː õː
ɔ ɔː ɔ̃ː
a aː ãː
ɛ ɛː ɛ̃ː
e eː ẽː
i iː ĩː

Tone

There are two tones, high and low. Each stem contains a tone melody, and each tone melody must contain at least one high tone- that is, a word cannot be exclusively low tone. The tone melody of a word may be overridden by inflectional morphology or syntax. In some cases a word may HLH or LHL melody, as in the case of gɔːn˧˦˨ (griot with war tomtoms) or kaː˦˨nu˦ (monkey).

Grammar

Number

When referring to humans, number is indicated by suffixing of the noun. In words for humans with a basic CV- stem, the singular suffix is -r̃ú. In words for humans with longer stems, the singular suffix is -nú or apocopated -ń. For plural words for humans, the suffix is -mú or -ḿ, regardless of stem length.

References

  1. ↑ Toro-tegu Dogon at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Heath, Jeffrey (2014). A Grammar of Toro Tegu (Dogon), Tabi mountain dialect.

Sources

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.