Ntcham, or Basari, is a language of the
Gurma people
Gurma (also called Gourma or Gourmantché) is an ethnic group living mainly in northeastern Ghana, Burkina Faso, around Fada N'Gourma, and also in northern areas of Togo and Benin, as well as southwestern Niger.
They might include the Bassar ...
in
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...
and
Ghana
Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...
. Akaselem (Tchamba) is frequently listed as a separate language.
Phonology
The phonology used by Chanard and Hartell is given below. Abbott and Cox (1966) had a similar phonology, though the non
labial-velar voiceless plosives were analyzed as aspirated, and vowel length was not distinguished. Badie (1995) analyzes and as and and also includes phonemic , vowel lengths, and nasalized vowels.
[, citing ]
Consonants
Vowels
Tones
Ntcham also has high, low, and mid tones.
Writing System
Long vowels are indicated by doubling the letter ‹aa, ii, ɔɔ, uu› and two vowels are always long ‹ee, oo›.
The tones are represented by acute accents for high tone and grave accents for low tone, on the vowels and the consonants m, n, b, l : ‹ḿ, ń, b́, ĺ›, ‹m̀, ǹ, b̀, l̀›.
References
Languages of Togo
Gurma languages
Languages of Ghana
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