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Wandala, also known as Mandara or Mura', is a language in the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, spoken in Cameroon and Nigeria.

Geographic distribution

Wandara has 23,500 speakers in Northern Cameroon and 20,000 speakers in Nigeria.

In Cameroon, Wandala is spoken in Mora and surroundings (in the Mora massif and surrounding plains) by about 23,500 speakers. It is also the lingua franca of the entire department of Mayo-Sava, by ethnic groups of the northern Mandara Mountains.

Dialects

The Mura dialect represents an archaic form of the Wandala language. It is the language of the non-Islamic "Kirdi-Mora" people who live in the Mora massif.

The Malgwa dialect is distinct. It is spoken in the plain north of Mora (in Kolofata district) by a mixture of Kanuri, Fula, and Arab populations.

Phonology

Consonants

Wandala has a rich consonant inventory, with more than forty consonantal segments.

Sounds in parentheses are allophones. The glottalized plosives are voiceless.

Vowels

Wandala has been reported to have no phonemic vowels. An alternative analysis posits three underlying and six phonetic vowels, as well as two underlying tones.

Syllable structure

Some possible syllable structures are V, N (nasal consonant), CV, Glide V, VC, CVC. Consonant clusters are not permitted in the coda. To avoid breaking this constraint, a central vowel may be inserted in word-final position. The consonant r may act as a syllabic peak, meaning the structure Cr is a possible syllable structure.

Grammar

Lexical categories

Wandala has the lexical categories of noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and predicator.

Morphology

Reduplication is a major morphological process in Wandala, with different forms and functions that may be limited to one lexical category or shared across lexical categories. Partial reduplication gives the plural form of verbs and adjectives, while complete reduplication gives aspectual and modal forms of verbs, or derives adverbs from other lexical categories. Phrases can also be reduplicated.

All lexical categories can have suffixes. On verbs, suffixes have many functions, such as marking semantic and grammatical relations, directionality and point of view. Suffixes on nouns mark plural number, genitive relation and pronominal possession. Nouns can be derived by adding suffixes to numerals and adjectives.

Wandala also has limited prefixes for nouns and one infix. The vowel a acts as an infix in the verbal system to encode verb plurality.

Syntax

In the noun phrase, the head precedes modifiers, determiners and quantifiers.

The grammatical relations subject and object are distinguished, with distinct pronouns. However, lexical properties of verbs determine how the grammatical roles of nominal arguments are coded, with some verbs taking the controller as the unmarked argument, and others the affected entity.

A nominal object or nominal subject can occur after the verb, but cannot both occupy this position, so if they co-occur, one must be fronted. This encodes information structure such as topicalization, focus or switch-reference.

References

1. Wandala at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. ^ Frajzyngier, Zygmunt (2012). A grammar of Wandala. De Gruyter Mouton.
3. ^ Binam Bikoi, Charles, ed. (2012). Atlas linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) [Linguistic Atlas of Cameroon]. Atlas linguistique de l'Afrique centrale (ALAC) (in French). Vol. 1: Inventaire des langues. Yaoundé: CERDOTOLA. ISBN 9789956796069.
4. Wolff, H. Ekkehard. "'Vocalogenesis' in (Central) Chadic languages" (PDF). Retrieved 2 December 2017.

• Biu-Mandara languages
• Languages of Nigeria