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Berta proper, a.k.a. Gebeto, is spoken by the Berta (also Bertha, Barta, Burta) in Sudan and Ethiopia. As of 2006 Berta had approximately 180,000 speakers in Sudan.

The three Berta languages, Gebeto, Fadashi and Undu, are often considered dialects of a single language. Berta proper includes the dialects Bake, Dabuso, Gebeto, Mayu, and Shuru; the dialect name Gebeto may be extended to all of Berta proper.

Phonology

Consonants

• Voiced plosives /b, d, ɡ/ may be heard as voiceless in free variation, word-initially or word-finally.
• A glottal stop mainly occurs between vowels, and may also be heard before word-initial vowel sounds.
• Nasal-stop sequences may occur morpheme-initially as .
• /ŋ/ is heard as when preceding a front vowel /i/ or /e/.
• /kʼ/ is heard as a palatal when before front vowels.
• /ɡ/ can be heard as voiced palatal or as a voiceless palatal when before front vowels.
• /h/ in word-final position can be heard as a fricative .
• /s, θ/ may sometimes occur as slightly voiced in vocalic or nasal environments.

Vowels

• If a non-closed vowel sound, /ɛ/ or /ɔ/, are adjacent to a closed vowel sound like /i/ or /u/ within vowel harmony, they are then heard as more closed .

Pronouns

The pronouns of Berta are as follows:

See also

• Berta word lists (Wiktionary)

References

1. ^ Berta at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. "Berta". Ethnologue. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
3. Bremer, Nate D. 2016. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Six Berta Speech Varieties in Ethiopia. SIL Electronic Survey Report 2016-007. Addis Ababa: SIL International.
4. Neudorf, Susanne (2016). Phonology of Berta. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Bibliography

• Torben Andersen. "Aspects of Berta phonology". Afrika und Übersee 76: pp. 41–80.
• Torben Andersen. "Absolutive and Nominative in Berta". ed. Nicolai & Rottland, Fifth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium. Nice, 24–29 August 1992. Proceedings. (Nilo-Saharan 10). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. 1995. pp. 36–49.
• M. Lionel Bender. "Berta Lexicon". In Bender (ed.), Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics (Nilo-Saharan 3), pp. 271–304. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag 1989.
• E. Cerulli. "Three Berta dialects in western Ethiopia", Africa, 1947.
• Susanne Neudorf & Andreas Neudorf: Bertha - English - Amharic Dictionary. Addis Ababa: Benishangul-Gumuz Language Development Project 2007.
• A. N. Tucker & M. A. Bryan. Linguistic Analyses: The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. London: Oxford University Press 1966.
• A. Triulzi, A. A. Dafallah, and M. L. Bender. "Berta". In Bender (ed.), The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing, Michigan: African Studies Center, Michigan State University 1976, pp. 513–532.

External links

• World Atlas of Language Structures information on Berta
• Website maintained by the language community, including published literature and an online dictionary

• Berta languages
• Languages of Sudan
• Languages of Ethiopia
• Subject–verb–object languages