Xamtanga (also Agawinya, Khamtanga, Simt'anga, Xamir, Xamta) is a
Central Cushitic language spoken in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
by the
Xamir people.
Sound system
Vowels
The central vowels have fronted and backed
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s, depending on the adjacent consonant(s).
Consonants
* is found only word-initial in
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s, and may be glottal or
pharyngeal .
* is
alveolar before the vowel ,
dental otherwise.
* can be ejective , and in some cases the ejectives appear to be in
free variation with the voiceless plosives.
Phonological processes
Gemination
In positions other than word-initial, Xamtanga contrasts
geminate
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
and non-geminate
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
s. With most consonants, the difference between a geminate and a non-geminate is simply one of length, but the cases of are more complex. When not word-initial, non-geminate is realized as a bilabial or labiodental fricative , and and are realized as affricates: . Their geminate equivalents may be realized as prolonged , or can simply be short .
In word-initial position, geminate consonants do not occur, and /b t q/ are realized as plosives.
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
* Appleyard, David L. (1988) "A Definite Article in Xamtanga", ''African Languages and Cultures'' 1/1, pp. 15–24.
*Appleyard, David L. (2006) ''A Comparative Dictionary of the Agaw Languages'' (Kuschitische Sprachstudien – Cushitic Language Studies Band 24). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
* Chloé Darmon, ''L'agäw xamtanga : une langue couchitique en contact avec l'amharique'', In ''Pount. Cahiers d'études : Corne de l'Afrique - Arabie du Sud'', 4, pp. 169–195, 2010
Languages of Ethiopia
Central Cushitic languages
{{AfroAsiatic-lang-stub