Mursi language
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| Mursi | |
|---|---|
| ሙነን (munɛn) | |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Region | Central Omo |
| Ethnicity | Mursi |
Native speakers | 7,400 (2007 census)[1][2] |
| Geʽez | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | muz |
| Glottolog | murs1242 |
| ELP | Mursi |
Mursi (also Dama, Merdu, Meritu, Murzi, Murzu) is a Southeast Surmic language spoken by the Mursi people who live in the South Omo Zone on the eastern side of the lower Omo valley in southwest Ethiopia.[3] The language is similar to Suri, another Southeast Surmic language spoken to the west of the Mursi language area.[4] It is spoken by approximately 7,400 people.[1]
Classification[edit]
Mursi is classified as belonging to the Southeast Surmic languages, to which the following other languages also belong: Suri, Me'en and Kwegu.[5][6] As such, Mursi is also part of the superordinate Eastern Sudanic family of the Nilo-Saharan languages.
Phonology[edit]
Phoneme inventory[edit]
The vowel and consonant inventory of Mursi is similar to those of other Southeast Surmic languages, except for the lack of ejectives, the labial fricative /f/ and the voiceless stop /p/.[7]
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar/ Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | t | c ⟨č⟩ | k | (ʔ) | |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ ⟨dʒ⟩ | ɡ | ||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʃ | h | ||
| voiced | z | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Liquids | r, l | |||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||
- Except for the hesitant inclusion of the glottal stop /ʔ/ by Firew, both Mütze and Firew agree on the consonant inventory. The layout mostly follows Mütze. The characters in angled brackets are the ones used by Firew, where they differ from Mütze.
- Mütze rejects the phonemic status of the glottal stop [ʔ], claiming that it is phonetically inserted to break up vowel sequences.[10] Firew discusses this and leaves the question undecided, but includes the sound in the phoneme chart.[11]
- Firew classifies the alveolar implosive /ɗ/ as postalveolar, without giving reasons.[12]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
- Both Mütze and Firew agree on the vowel inventory and on the chosen transcription, as shown above.[14]
- Even though vowel length appears phonetically in Mursi, it can be explained by the elision of weak consonants between identical vowels.[15]
Tone[edit]
Both Mütze[16] and Firew[17] agree that there are only two underlying tone levels in Mursi, as opposed to larger inventories proposed by Turton and Bender[18] and Moges.[19]
Grammar[edit]
The Mursi grammar makes use of the following parts of speech: nouns,[20] verbs,[21] adjectives,[22] pronouns,[23] adverbs,[24] adpositions,[25] question words,[26] quantifiers,[25] connectors,[27] discourse particles,[28] interjections,[29] ideophones,[25] and expressives.[25]
Nouns[edit]
Nouns can be inflected for number and case.[30] The number marking system is very complex, using suffixation, suppletion or tone to either mark plurals from singular bases, or singulatives from plural bases.[31] Mursi preverbal subjects and all objects are unmarked,[32] whereas postverbal subjects are marked by a nominative case. Further cases are the oblique case and the genitive case.[32] Modified nouns receive a special morphological marking called construct form by Mütze.[33]
Notes[edit]
- ^ a b "Ethiopian Census 2007". csa.gov.et. Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency. 2007. Archived from the original on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
- ^ Mursi at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 1
- ^ Firew (2021), pp. 19 f
- ^ Firew (2021), pp. 36 f
- ^ Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (1998). "Surmic Languages and Cultures: an Introduction". In Dimmendaal, Gerrit J.; Last, Marco (eds.). Surmic Languages and Cultures. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 35–81.
- ^ Firew (2021) p. 45
- ^ Mütze (2014), p. 26
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 46
- ^ Mütze (2014), pp. 26 f
- ^ Firew (2021), pp. 46 f
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 46; on pp. 49 f he even several times calls it velar
- ^ Mütze (2014), p. 37
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 59
- ^ Mütze (2014), p. 39
- ^ Mütze (2014), p. 42
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 86
- ^ Turton & Bender (1976, p. 559)
- ^ Moges Yigezu (2001). A Comparative Study of the Phonetics and Phonology of Surmic Languages. Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles.
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 102
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 128
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 130
- ^ Firew (2021), p.132
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 143
- ^ a b c d Firew (2021), p. 151
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 154
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 161
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 163
- ^ Firew (2021), p. 168
- ^ Mütze (2014), p. 47
- ^ Firew (2021), ch. 6.2
- ^ a b Mütze (2014), p. 53
- ^ Mütze (2014), p. 62
Bibliography[edit]
- Firew Girma Worku (2021). A Grammar of Mursi: A Nilo-Saharan Language of Ethiopia (Thesis). Brill: Leiden. doi:10.1163/9789004449916.
- Moges Yigezu; Turton, David (2005). "Latin Based Mursi Orthography". ELRC Working Papers. 1 (2). Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Languages Research Center: 242–57. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
- Mütze, Bettina (2014). A Sketch of the Mursi Language (MA thesis). Gloucester: Redcliff College, University of Gloucestershire.
- Turton, David; Bender, M. Lionel (1976). "Mursi". In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.). The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. pp. 533–561.
- Turton, David; Moges Yigezu; Oliserali Olibui (2008). Mursi-English-Amharic Dictionary. Addis Ababa: Culture and Arts Society of Ethiopia.