Inor language

Inor
Ennemor
Native to Ethiopia
Native speakers
 (undated figure of 280,000)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ior
Glottolog inor1238[2]

Inor (pronounced [inoːr]), sometimes called Ennemor, is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in central Ethiopia. One of the Gurage languages, it is mainly spoken within the Gurage Zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, as well as by speakers of the language who have settled in Ethiopian cities, especially Addis Ababa. In addition to the morphological complexity that is common to all Semitic languages, Inor exhibits the very complex morphophonology characteristic of West Gurage languages.

Endegegn, Enner, Gyeto, and the extinct dialect Mesmes are all sometimes considered dialects of Inor.

Inor possesses nasal vowels, which are unusual for a Gurage language. Many of these may be the result of historical rhinoglottophilia.

Phonology

Consonants

Inor consonants[3]
labial alveolar alveo-
palatal		 palatal velar glottal
plain labialized plain palatalized lab. plain lab.
Stops and
affricates		 ejective t’ tʃ’ k’ kʲ’ kʷ’
voiceless p pʷ t tʃ k kʲ kʷ ʔ ʔʷ
voiced b bʷ d dʒ ɡ ɡʲ ɡʷ
Fricatives voiceless f fʷ s ʃ x xʲ xʷ
voiced z ʒ
Nasals m mʷ n ɳ ɲ ŋ
Approximants plain β̞ (l) j w
nasalized β̞̃
Rhotics plain r
nasalized r̃

Vowels

Inor vowels[4]
front central back
high i ɨ u
mid e ə o
low æ a

[ɨ] may be regarded as largely epenthetic and only marginally phonemic.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Inor at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Inor". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Chamora & Hetzron (2000:10)
  4. ↑ Chamora & Hetzron (2000:13–16)
  5. ↑ Chamora & Hetzron (2000:13)

Bibliography

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 5/30/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.