Sandawe language
Introduction
Sandawe is a tonal language spoken in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. Reported speaker numbers vary between 30 000 (Tucker, 1977) and 70 000 (SIL/Ethnologue 1987). Sandawe is classified as a Khoisan language by Greenberg (1976). The main reason for this classification is the presence of clicks in the language. Because of its typological nature, this classification is disputed, but not much research has been undertaken as to what the genetic affiliation of Sandawe might be. Sandawe is currently (as of 2004) studied by Sander Steeman of Leiden University.
Sounds
Vowels
Sandawe has five vowel phonemes:
In word-final position, voiceless vowels occur frequently. These vowels are in free variation with their voiced counterparts.
Consonants
Non-click consonants
[to be written]
Clicks
(source: De Voogt 1992:53,54)
|
| Dental
| Lateral
| Lamino-postalveolar
|
| Glottalised
| ʔǀ | ʔǁ | ʔǃ
|
| Glottalised with delayed release
| ǀʔ | ǁʔ | ǃʔ
|
| Aspirated
| ǀʰ | ǁʰ | ǃʰ
|
| Nasal
| ŋǀ | ŋǁ | ŋǃ
|
Grammar
Pronouns
|
| Sandawe
| English
|
| 1 sg.
| -és
| I
|
| 2 sg.
| -i
| you
|
| 3 sg. male
| -à
| he
|
| 3 sg. female
| -sà
| she
|
| 1 pl
| -wà
| we
|
| 2 pl
| -è
| you
|
| 3 pl
| -ʔà
| they
|
Syllable structure
Sandawe syllables are usually of the form CV; in monosyllabic words, word-final nasals are not uncommon, CV(N). Sometimes other consonants are found in word-final position, but this is most probably the result of deletion of word-final voiceless vowels.
A syllabic nasal m is found in Swahili loanwords. The most common word structure is disyllabic with or without long vowels (CV(:)CV(:)), according to De Voogt (1992).
Nouns
A noun consists generally of a stem and a suffix which indicates gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, plural).
[suffixes to be added]
Adjectives
Adjectival concepts are mostly expressed as verbs in Sandawe according to Kagawe (1993:ix).
Syntax
Basic word order in Sandawe is SOV according to De Voogt (1992). However, word order in the Sandawe sentence is very flexible due to the presence of several 'subject identification strategies'.
Sample sentence (mid tones are not marked):
úte-s kx'aré-és hàʔ!à
yesterday-I boy-I called
Yesterday I called a boy
(source: De Voogt 1992:19 adapted from Tucker 1977)
Tone
A tonal analysis of Sandawe is not completed yet. Most authors (e.g. De Voogt 1992, Kagaya 1993) list three level tones (High, Mid, Low) and two contour tones (Falling, Rising). The phonemical/tonemical status of these tones is unclear.
Further reading
References
- Dobashi, Yoshihito (2001) 'Agreement and Word Order in Sandawe' In Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics, 2001, 18, pp 57-74.
- Kagaya, Ryohei (1993) 'A Classified Vocabulary of The Sandawe Language', Asian & African Lexicon vol 26. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA).
- Voogt, A.J. de (1992) Some phonetic aspects of Hatsa and Sandawe clicks (Unpublished MA thesis in African Linguistics, Leiden University).
See also
