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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.