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Mantsi (also known as Ma’as or Mangas) is an endangered Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Mangas town in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Blench (2020) reports that it is also called Mantsi. According to Blench, the structure of Mantsi differs significantly from the other South Bauchi languages.

Word lists of Mantsi had previously been published in Kiyoshi Shimizu's (1978) South Bauchi survey, which first mentioned the existence of the language. An unpublished word list was also recorded by Ronald Cosper (n.d.).

Names

Mantsi speakers refer to their language as Pyik Mantsi , and to themselves as the Mantsi people. Although there are fewer than 1,000 speakers, the language is still being spoken by children.

Demographics

Mantsi is spoken in the single village of Mantsi (locally known as Maɗana or Ma’as ) in the southern part of Bauchi LGA, Bauchi State. The Kir and Laar peoples, who speak closely related but distinct languages, live just to the northeast of Mantsi village in the nearby villages of Kir and Laar, respectively.

Classification

Mantsi belongs to the Kir branch of the South Bauchi languages. It is most closely related to Kir and Laar, as shown by the lexical comparisons below.

Mantsi also has some lexical innovations, which are:

Phonology

Mantsi has 3 level tones, as well as rising and falling contour tones.

Grammar

Number is not marked morphologically.

Lexicon

Plants and animals

Some Mantsi names of plants and animals:

Numerals

Mantsi numerals:

Notes

1. ^ Mantsi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. ^ Blench, Roger. 2020. An introduction to Mantsi, a South Bauchi language of Central Nigeria.
3. Shimizu, Kiyoshi 1978. The Southern Bauchi Group of Chadic Languages: A survey report. Coll. Africana Marburgensia, n° 2 (Special Issue).
4. Cosper, Ronald n.d. Wordlist of South Bauchi (West Chadic) languages ; Boghom, Mangas, Buli, Dott, Geji, Jimi, Polci, Sayanci, Zul. ms.

• West Chadic languages
• Languages of Nigeria
• Endangered languages of Africa