A Survey of Kordofanian. Volume 1: The Heiban Group

180 Pages·1981·7.614 MB·English

by  Thilo C. Schadeberg

Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika SUGIA
Herausgegeben am Institut für Afrikanistik der Universität Köln
ISSN 0720-0986
Beiheft 1
HELMUT BUSKE VERLAG HAMBURG
Thilo C.JSchadeberg
THE HEIBAN GROUP
Volume One
A SURVEY OF KORDOFANIAN
PER LtHRt
HELMUT BUSKE VERLAG HAMBURG
SUGIA - Beihefte erscheinen in loser Folge und werden heraus­
gegeben am Institut für Afrikanistik der Universität zu Köln
Herausgeber:
Istvän Fodor, Bernd Heine, Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig, Franz Rottland,
Rainer Voßen, Jürgen Christoph Winter
Redaktion dieses Bandes:
Rainer Voßen
ötEBOy?
g §
1
b
■Ä m11=1—il A'
CENTRAV
BIBUOTBKET
CIP-Kurztitelaufnhame der Deutschen Bibliothek
Schadeberg, Thilo C.:
A survey of Kordofanian / Thilo C. Schadeberg.
- Hamburg: Buske
Vol. 1. The Heibangroup. -1981.
(Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika: Beih.; 1)
ISBN 3-87118-461-6
NE: Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika / Beiheft
ISSN 0720-0986 (SUGIA-Beihefte)
ISBN 3-87118-461-6 (SUGIA - Beiheft 1)
Alle Rechte Vorbehalten
© HELMUT BUSKE VERLAG HAMBURG 1981
Umschlagentwurf: Thilo C. Schadeberg
Karten: Carla Butz
Gesamtherstellung: Strauß & Cramer GmbH, 6945 Hirschberg 2
CONTENTS
Preface 7
Introduction 11
PART ONE : SURVEY DATA 13
I. Informants and Languages 13
II. Data Sheets 19
PART TWO : DESCRIPTION 59
1. Rere 59
2. Ebang 64
2a Abul 68
3. Laru 72
4. Utoro 75
5. Shirumba 79
6. Tiro 84
7. Moro 87
8. Ko 94
9. Warnang 99
10. Logoi 103
PART THREE: COMPARISON 109
1. Lexicostatistic Subclassification 109
2. Sound Correspondences and Phonological Recon­
structions 115
2.1. Bilabial Obstruents 116
2.2. Dental Obstruents 117
2.3. Dental/Alveolar Correspondences 118
2.4. Alveolar Obstruents and the Retroflex Flap 119
2.5. Palatal Obstruents 120
2.6. Velar Obstruents 121
2.7. Nasals 123
6
2,8. Liquids and Glides 125
2.9. Vowels 128
2.10. Vowel Length 131
2.11. Tone 132
3. Reconstruction of the Noun Class System 132
3.1. Summary 132
3.2. Major Two-class Genders 134
3.3. Minor Two-class Genders 137
3.4. One-class Genders 140
3.5. Historical Changes of the Noun Class System 142
4. Reconstructions of Lexical Items 152
.5. Reconstructions of Pronominal Forms 181
5.1. Personal Pronouns 181
5.2. Possessives 184
5.3. Demonstratives 185
6. Conclusion 185
6.1. Phonological Branch Innovations and
Differentiae 186
6.2. Morphological Branch Innovations and
Differentiae 187
6.3. Lexical Branch Innovations and Differentiae 187
6.4. The Position of Shirumba (5.SH) 188
Appendix: Table of Cognation Judgements 191
References 198
Maps:
The Distribution of the Kordofanian Languages 9
The Languages of the HEIBAN Group 10
PREFACE
The so-called Kordofanian languages are spoken in the Nuba Mountains
in the Democratic Republic of the Sudan. The linguists' choice of the name
"Kordofanian" is not an entirely happy one because 'Kordofan' refers to the
country around El Obeid and excludes the regions of the Nuba Mountains which
for a long time used to be governed first by and then from Kordofan. In 1974
the province of Kordofan was split up and the southern half (re)gained pro­
vincial status with Kadugli as its capital. This new province, called South­
ern Kordofan, is the area in which all Kordofanian languages are spoken, and
also Arabic (by townspeople and by the Baqqara), Hill Nubian dialects,
Nyimang, Temein, and Daju.
Kordofanian occupies a prominent position in Greenberg’s (1963) clas­
sification of African languages: it is given the status of one of the two
primary branches of Niger-Kordofanian (or: Congo-Kordofanian), which is one
of his four African language families. Greenberg’s affiliation of Kordofan­
ian with Niger-Congo has - to my knowledge - never been seriously challeng­
ed. Many authors, however, take a more cautious position leaving Kordofanian
unclassified. Such reticence seems wise in view of the paucity of our knowl­
edge about these languages and their internal relationships.
A feature of Kordofanian that has continuously aroused the linguists’
interest is its system of noun classes which is in structure strikingly rem­
iniscent of Bantu and related systems in Niger-Congo. Greenberg 1972:190
himself admits the importance of this for his classification:
"It is not too much to state that in at least one instance, that of
Niger-Kordofanian, grammatical resemblances were treated as more deci­
sive than lexical ones."
The purpose of the present survey is to clarify the internal relation­
ships between the various groups of Kordofanian languages, as well as to
provide material that will shed light on the relation between Kordofanian
and Niger-Congo. I hope to present the results of my survey of Kordofanian
in five parts corresponding to five language groups:
8 PREFACE
EEIBAN Group
TALODI Group
RASHAD Group
KATLA Group
KADUGLI Group
The names chosen for the groups are the names of towns centrally located in
the respective areas; the hydronymy commonly used in African linguistics
cannot be applied in the Nuba Mountains for want of permanent surface water.
The survey work was carried out in the Nuba Mountains during three
months from October, 1974, to January, 1975. I hereby gratefully acknowledge
- the financial sponsoring by the Netherlands Foundation for the Ad­
vancement of Tropical Research (NOTRO), grant nr. W 39-28;
- the recognition of my work by the Institute of African and Asian
Studies, University of Khartoum;
- the administrative help received from the Netherlands Embassy in
Khartoum;
- the friendly hospitality bestowed upon me by police officers, judges
scribes, medical officers, teachers, Verona Fathers, traders, and many other
people wherever I went in the Nuba Mountains.
9
MAP: Kordofanian
10
MAPs H e i b a n
INTRODUCTION
The HEIBAN Group is essentially the same as the "Koalib-Moro language
Group" in Stevenson 1956-57. The group also appears in the Handbook of Afri­
can Languages (Tucker & Bryan 1956, 1966), as well as in Greenberg 1963 (un­
der the name "Koalib Group"). My change in nomenclature derives from the wish
to avoid naming a language group after one or two individual languages. More­
over, the two languages Koalib and Moro do not occupy extreme positions with­
in this group, neither geographically nor linguistically. Heiban is the only
town in the area where the various languages of this group are spoken and it
is located in the centre of this area. "Heiban" is the form of this place-
name that is generally accepted by Arabs and Europeans.
My own data on the languages of the HEIBAN Group consist of wordlists
from eleven localities, two of which turned out to be nearly identical. The
language names I am using are based on terms as they are used by the speakers
themselves. Often, such a name applies only to the speech-form of a single
locality, and no generic term covering all the dialects of a single language
is in use. I have stripped the locally used names of their class prefixes,
and thus they may be used without any changes not only for the language, but
also for the locality, the community, or the individual speaker. I have also
fully romanized all language names, omitting diacritics and uncommon digraphs.
Here are the language names and their code abbreviations as I shall use them:
Rere 1. RE Tiro 6. TI
Ebang 2. EB Moro 7. MO
Abul 2a AB Ko 8. KO
Laru 3. LA Warnang 9. NA
Utoro 4. UT Logoi 10. LO
Shirumba 5. SH
Hitherto, the languages of the HEIBAN Group have been known from the
following publications: Ruppell 1829, Seligman 1910/11, Meinhof 1915-19,
MacDiarmid & MacDiarmid 1931, Meinhof 1943/44, Stevenson 1956-57, and Black &
Black 1971. To these may be added four translations of the New Testament into
Rere, Ebang, Utoro, and Moro.