Maʼa is a
Bantu language
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
The t ...
of Tanzania.
The
Mbugu people
The Mbugu people, also known as the Va'maa, Ma'a (''Wambugu'' in Swahili language, Swahili) are an ethnic and linguistic group hailing from western Usambara Mountains of Lushoto District in Tanga Region of Tanzania. Tanzania's Mbugu (or Ma'á) la ...
speak two divergent
registers, which have been treated as separate languages by some authorities (e.g. Tucker and Bryan): Mbugu or "Normal Mbugu" (autonym kiMbugu) is purely Bantu, with vocabulary closely related to
Pare
Pare may refer to:
People with the name
* Emmett Paré (1907-1973), tennis player
* Pare, former member of Kotak, an Indonesian band
* Pare Lorentz (1905-1992), American film director
* Richard Pare (born 1948), English photographer
* Paré, a ...
, while Maʼa or "Inner Mbugu" (autonym kiMaʼa) consists of an inherited
Cushitic vocabulary with
Bantu
Bantu may refer to:
*Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages
*Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language
*Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle
*Black Association for Nationali ...
morphology similar to that of
Shambala and Pare. They share a grammar, to the point that their syntax is identical and a passage in one can be translated to the other simply by changing the
content words.
The Cushitic element was identified as
South Cushitic by Ehret. However, Kießling (2001) notes a large
East Cushitic admixture. Mous presents the Cushitic element as a register of a Bantu language, and identifies it as largely East Cushitic rather than South Cushitic.
[Blench, 2006]
Classification of Afroasiatic
ms.
Phonology
Consonants
Normal Mbugu distinguishes 29 consonants. Inner Mbugu distinguishes an additional four: /ʔ ɬ x
ŋ̊x/, for a total of 33. The table below displays the consonants of Mbugu in IPA format, along with Mous' (1995) practical orthography in angle brackets where it differs from IPA.
Vowels
Both registers of Mbugu distinguish five vowels.
Tone
Three tones are distinguished in Mbugu: high, low, and falling. Low tone is default (unmarked). High tone is represented with an acute accent , while falling tone is represented with the sequence .
References
Further reading
*Tosco, Mauro. 2000. 'Cushitic Overview.' ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 33(2):87-121.
{{Authority control
Mixed languages
East Cushitic languages
Northeast Coast Bantu languages