Chakali (tʃàkálɪ́ɪ́) is a

Gur language The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur or Mabia, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in most areas of Burkina Faso, and in south-central Mali, northeastern Iv ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...

, spoken by almost 3,500 individuals in several villages in the Wa East District of the

Upper West Region The Upper West Region of Ghana is located in the north-western corner of Ghana and is bordered by Upper East region to the east, Northern region to the south, and Burkina Faso to the west and north. The Upper West regional capital and largest se ...

. More specifically, Chakali is spoken by inhabitants of the Tiisa, Sogla, Tousa, Motigu, Ducie, Katua and Gurumbele villages. The majority of Chakali speakers also speak

Wali A wali (''wali'' ar, وَلِيّ, '; plural , '), the Arabic word which has been variously translated "master", "authority", "custodian", "protector", is most commonly used by Muslims to indicate an Islamic saint, otherwise referred to by t ...

or Bulengi. Some believe that the language of Chakali is soon to be extinct, with Wali and Bulengi becoming the only languages that will be spoken in those villages.

Phonology

Chakali

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

is typical of Gur languages, with tone,

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

, and

labial–velar consonant Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as . They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant . Labi ...

. The majority of Chakali's syllables fall into one of three categories C(consonant)V(vowel), CVC and CVV. All the other syllable combinations found in Chakali are extremely rare and are not found in the middle syllable of a word.

Vowels

Chakali contrasts long and short vowels, as well as

advanced and retracted tongue root In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR) and retracted tongue root (RTR) are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mongo ...

vowels, which play a role in vowel harmony. While typically treated as a "neutral" vowel for tongue root harmony, might surface as following -ATR vowels, but this is not phonemic. Additionally, arises during epenthesis or

vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Creek language), and which are perc ...

. All phonemic vowels can also appear

nasalized In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internatio ...

, which is often due to the influence of a neighboring

nasal consonant In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...

glottal fricative Glottal consonants are consonants using the glottis as their primary articulation. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the glottal fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants ...

. Nasal vowels do occur phonemically in certain words, as demonstrated by near-minimal or

minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...

s: * 'enter', 'laziness' * 'ancient', 'do by force' * 'go down', 'honey'

Consonants

* surfaces as in word-final or word-medial onset position. * and usually surface as between vowels. *All nasals are realized as in word-final position.

Tone and Intonation

Chakali is considered a tone language; variations in pitch are used to change the lexical and grammatical meaning of words and phrases. Chakali has two major categories of tone: high and low; mid tones cause no lexical change and are considered to be derived from either high or low tones (such that a mid tone is considered to be either a lowered high tone or a raised low tone). Tones may also be considered as contour tones: either as falling or rising.

Grammar

Chakali is a subject–verb–object language.

Verbs

The most common amount of syllables found in Chakali verbs contain either one, two, or three syllables, and of those three syllable amounts having only two syllables in the verb is the most common in Chakali.

Numerals

Chakali’s number system can be separated into atomic numbers and complex. Atomic numbers include 1-8, 10, 20, 100, and 1000. Complex numbers can be obtained through the subtraction, addition and/or multiplication of its units. For example. fɪ́dɪ̀dɪ́gɪ́túò (nineteen) is the addition of fɪ́ (10), dɪ (and), and dɪ́gɪ́tūō (9). Note: In numbers 11-19 /dɪ/ can change to /d/ if the following unit begins with a vowel like in fɪ́dàŋɔ̃ (15). Numbers 21-99 are formed by multiples of 20; like in the French number system, where 80 is formed by multiplying 4 times 20, quatre-vingt. For example: màtféó álɪ́é ànɪ́ fɪ́dālʊ̄pɛ̀ (57) which translates directly to twenty, two and seventeen. Numbers 101-999 and 1001+ are formed likewise, but in multiples of 100's and 1000's. For example: 1999 is tʊ́sʊ̀ ànɪ́ kɔ̀sá dɪ́gɪ́tūō ànɪ́ màftéó ànáásɛ̀ àní fɪ́dɪ̀dɪ́gɪ́túò, which translates directly to 1000 and 100's, 9 and 20, 4 and 19. Note: hundred and thousand have plural forms.

References

Languages of Ghana Gurunsi languages {{gur-lang-stub