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Samwe language

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Gur language of Burkina
Samwe
Wara
RegionBurkina Faso
EthnicitySamba
Native speakers(4,500 cited 1993)
Language familyNiger–Congo?
Language codes
ISO 639-3wbf
Glottologwara1292
ELPWara

Samwé (samoe), also known as Wara (ouara, ouala), is a Gur language of Burkina. Dialects are Negueni-Klani, Ouatourou-Niasogoni, and Soulani. Niasogoni speakers have difficulty with Negueni, but not vice versa.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial-
velar
Plosive voiceless p t c k kp
voiced b
Nasal m n
Fricative f s
Flap ɾ
Approximant l j w
  • /b/ can be lenited to [β̞] between vowels.
  • /t/ has a free variant [d] after nasals, vowels, and other consonants.
  • /c/ is voiced [ɟ] after nasals and between vowels.
  • /k/ is often [g] or [ɰ] between vowels. It tends to stay voiceless at morpheme boundaries.
  • /kp/ becomes voiced [gb] between vowels or after nasals. /kp is not allowed before /u/.
  • [ʔ], which is not phonemic, occurs intervocalically between the same vowel.
  • /f/ is always voiceless.
  • /s/ is voiced [z] intervocalically and after nasals, [ʃ] before /ia/ and /ie/, and [s] elsewhere. /s/ can be lenited to [ɹ], which Ouattara represents as . As with stops, voicing and lenition are in free variation.
  • /ɾ/ can also be realized as [r] or [ɹ]. /ɾ/ is also in free variation with /n/ in some words. Sometimes, /ɾn/ becomes /nn/ or /rr/.
  • /l/ and /n/ are contrastive, but roughly 20 words have /l~n/ in free variation.

Vowels

Samwe has 20 vowels: 7 short oral vowels, 7 long oral vowels, 3 short nasal vowels, and 3 long nasal vowels.

Oral vowels
Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː
Open a
Nasal vowels
Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close ĩ ĩː ũ ũː
Open ã ãː

Samwe has two types of vowel harmony: ATR harmony and front-back harmony. /ɛ, ɔ/ do not occur in stems with /i, e, o, u/. Front and back vowels (/i, e/ and /u, o) do not co-occur in disyllabic imperative verb stems, but this rule is not followed in other verb forms. /a/ is neutral in both types.

Notes

  1. Samwe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Ouattara 2015, p. 96.
  3. ^ Ouattara 2015, p. 98.
  4. ^ Ouattara 2015, p. 99.
  5. Ouattara 2015, p. 100.
  6. Ouattara 2015, p. 105.
  7. Ouattara 2015, pp. 105–106.
  8. Ouattara 2015, p. 110.
  9. ^ Ouattara 2015, p. 111.
  10. ^ Ouattara 2015, p. 120.
  11. Ouattara 2015, p. 155.
  12. Ouattara 2015, p. 158.
  13. Ouattara 2015, p. 155, 158.

References

Gur languages
Central Gur
Oti–Volta
Eastern
Western
Gurma
Other
Bwa
Gurunsi
Eastern
Northern
Western
Others
Senufo
Northern
Central
Southern
Kulango
Wara–Natyoro
Others
Languages of Burkina Faso
Official language
Regional languages
Indigenous
languages
Mande
Gur
Senufo
Wara–Natyoro
Other
Immigrant languages


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