Bagirmi Lexicon: Bagirmi-French, French-Bagirmi, with Grammatical Introduction in English

294 Pages·2016·2.32 MB·The Sara-Bagirmi Languages Project

by  John M. Keegan, Mahamat Idriss Djibrine

Bagirmi Lexicon

Bagirmi-French
French-Bagirmi
with Grammatical
Introduction in English

John M. Keegan

Mahamat Idriss Djibrine

The Sara-Bagirmi Languages Project

Morkeg Books
Cuenca
Second Edition

March, 2016

Updated versions and information on
the Sara-Bagirmi Language Project
are available at

http://morkegbooks.com/Services/World/Languages/SaraBagirmi

Recordings of the words and sentences
in this work are available from
the Bagirmi Sound Dictionary at:

http://morkegbooks.com/Services/World/Languages/SaraBagirmi/SoundDictionary/Bagirmi/BagStart.htm
Acknowledgements

The initial foundation for this lexicon has been the data in Gaden (1907),
Stevenson (1956), and the SIL Bagirmi Lexicon (Goodman et al: 2014). We wish to
thank Nathanael Szobody, Diane Goodman and Grace Kim for sharing their
knowledge of Bagirmi, and helping us avoid a number of pitfalls. All three reviewed
the grammatical introduction to this work, providing helpful feedback to previous
versions of the work, and most of their comments and corrections have been
incorporated into the work. Nathanael also sat for many hours with me examining
each of the lexicons examples for postposition jó.

This work was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities (FN50134-14).
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Introduction

Bagirmi is a Sara-Bagirmi language of the Central-Sudanic branch of Nilo-
Saharan which according to Lewis, Simons, and Fennig (2015) is used by some
35,000 speakers principally in the Chari-Bagirmi region of Chad. There are also a
large number of speakers found in the Chadian capital, N’djamena. This lexicon
contains over 2,430 words, 2,650 sample sentences and 290 expressions and idioms.
In addition, a 90 page introduction to the grammar of Bagirmi is included.
Initial portions of the work were based on the words found in Gaden (1907).
An attempt was then made to use sample sentences from Stevenson (1957), but in the
end most were dropped, either because they were not correct, or because it was
deemed they were of little value. Words were then added from the control list for the
Sara-Bagirmi Language Project, and later from the Bagirmi lexicon produced at SIL
(Goodman et al: 2014). Sample sentences have been provided for over 80% of the
words, and the vast majority of words and sentences were recorded for use in the
Bagirmi sound dictionary.
The quality of the data contained is relatively high. A check has been run to
ensure that sentences only contain valid Bagirmi words, and a manual review was
made comparing recordings with transcriptions. Many of the issues noted in the
preliminary version of this work have been addressed, and a number of transcription
errors and lexical gaps are resolved in this work. There nonetheless remains much to
be done, and it is our hope to continue this work and to build a more complete
dictionary of Bagirmi over the coming years.

Transcription
The charts below show the vowels and consonants used to describe the
language. It should be emphasized that this transcription is intended to adequately
capture the phonological distinctions found in the language, but it is not intended as a
proposal for a writing system.
Vowels
a like the ‘a’ in Spanish ‘gato’. o c an be pronounced like the ‘o’ in
e can be pronounced like the ‘é’ in Spanish ‘gota’, similar to first ‘o’ in
French ‘arrivé’, or like the ‘e’ in English English ‘coconut’, or [ɔ], similar to the
‘set’ [ε]. ‘aw’ in English ‘law’ as spoken in most
ə a central mid vowel pronounced of the Northeast Corridor or the Great
Lakes area, but shorter and with no final
between ‘e’ and ‘o’, but not rounded.
glide.
i like the ‘i’ in Spanish ‘si’.
u similar to the ‘u’ in Spanish ‘cuna’
ɨ central high vowel. Somewhat
similar to the unaccented ‘e’ in English
‘tenacious’.
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Consonants

b like ‘b’ in English ‘bad’ or in French ŋ like the ‘ng’ in English ‘king’.
‘beau’. Occurs initially, between vowels and at
ɓ implosive bilabial, extreme lowering end of word.
of the larynx which produces the ɲ palatal nasal, similar to the ‘gn’ in
distinctive sound of the sharp intake of air French ‘oignon’, or ‘ñ’ in Spanish ‘caña’.
as it rushes in to equalize the pressure p my impression is that ‘p’ is not very
when the stop is released. aspirated, closer to the ‘p’ in English
c [č] similar to the ‘ch’ in English ‘spit’ than it is to the ‘p’ in ‘pit’.
‘cheese’ or ‘chalk’ r shortly trilled ‘r’, similar to the ‘rr’ in
d similar to the ‘d’ in English ‘die’ or Spanish ‘burro’, but shorter; for speakers
French ‘des’. of some languages, the ‘r’ acquires a
f similar to the ‘f’ in English ‘fork’ or distinct lateral sound, sounding as they
the ‘f’ in French ‘faux’ are starting to say ‘l’ but ending with an
g similar to the ‘g’ in English ‘go’ or ‘r’.
‘give’. ɗ implosive alveolar, extreme lowering
h similar to the ‘h’ in English ‘have’. of the larynx which produces the
j like the ‘j’ in English ‘joke’. distinctive sound of the sharp intake of air
k similar to the ‘c’ in English ‘scoot’; as it rushes in to equalize the pressure
relatively unaspirated. when the stop is released.
l like the ‘l’ in English ‘lake’ or in s like the ‘s’ in English ‘soup’.
French ‘les’. š like the ‘sh’ in English ‘shoe’.
m like the ‘m’ in English ‘miss’ or in t like the ‘t’ in English ‘stoop’; less
French ‘mes’. aspirated then the ‘t’ in English ‘top’.
mb a combination of ‘m’ and ‘b’, v like the ‘v’ in English ‘vain’
where the ‘m’ is lightly pronounced, and w like the ‘w’ in English ‘wet’. See
does not constitute a separate syllable. also diphthongs.
n like the ‘n’ in English ‘never’ or y when beginning a syllable, like the
Spanish ‘nunca’ ‘y’ in English ‘yes’. See also diphthongs.
nd a combination of ‘n’ and ‘d’, where ƴ implosive palatal glide, like the ‘y’ in
the ‘n’ is lightly pronounced, and does English ‘yes’, but produced with lowering
not constitute a separate syllable. of the larynx which produces the
ng a combination of ‘ŋ’ and ‘g’, similar distinctive sound of the sharp intake of
to ‘ng’ in English ‘single’. Does not occur air.
in final position. z ‘like the ‘z’ in English ‘zone’.
nj a combination of ‘n’ and ‘j’, where
the ‘n’ is lightly pronounced, and does
not constitute a separate syllable.
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Abbreviations

Aux - Auxiliary Verb NIn - Inalienable Noun
Av - Adverb NP - Proper Noun
Cmp - Complementizer Pr - Pronoun
Cnj - Conjunction PrA - Pronominal Affix
EP - End of Phrase marker Spec - Specifier (article
Expr - Expression or demonstrative)
Id - Ideophone NPl - Noun plural marker
Inf - Infinitive Num - Number
Inj - Interjection V - Verb
Int - Interrogative VN - Verbal Noun
Loc - Locative VPl - Verb plural marker
N - Noun VT - Transitive Verb

Preliminary Grammatical Notes
This introduction to the grammar of Bagirmi has been built principally from a
study of the words and sentences in the lexicon in order to uncover grammatical
generalizations. Its primary goal is to provide a preliminary description of the features
of the phonology, morphology and syntax in order to help the lexicon user understand
the sample sentences. There is, however, an inherent weakness with this approach. It
gives us a basic understanding of structures that are grammatical, but not of those that
are not grammatical. Variations of the speech forms shown here no doubt exist, but a
systematic study needs to be undertaken to determine which variations are possible and
which are not. For example, in our discussion of word order, we know that the order we
describe here is valid, but are not certain what other orders are or are not possible. In
short, we continue to consider this discussion of Bagirmi grammar preliminary. It is our
hope that in the future we will be able to undertake the research needed to create a more
complete grammar of this fascinating language.

1. Phonology
1.1 Vowels
All the vowels that occur in Bagirmi also occur in the Sara languages, and their
pronunciation is similar. Like the Sara Kaba languages, but unlike the Sara languages,
there are no nasalized vowels in the phonemic inventory. Vowels are pronounced
nasalized when adjacent to a nasal consonant, but this is not noted in the transcription.
1.1.1 The vowel ‘e’. Stevenson (1957) implies that a phonological distinction exists
between the vowels ‘e’ and ‘ε’, and I originally assumed this to be true based on a few
suspect minimal pairs (e.g. èé’ē ‘no’ vs. é’ēh [έ’ɛ̄h] ‘ah!’). However after discussion
with Mahamat Idriss Djibrine I have concluded that Bagirmi speakers do not distinguish
between these two vowels. My impression is that the vowel ‘e’ tends to be pronounced
more like [ε] when in a bi-syllabic word except in those few cases where it is a long
vowel.
1.1.2 The barred-i. At the start of our work I suspected that it might be possible
to transcribe Bagirmi words without the barred-i. Bagirmi speakers, including Mahamat
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Idriss Djibrine, generally do not consider that there is a vowel in the slot barred-i
occupies. For example, Mahamat initially would have preferred us to write kᵼlā ‘string’
as klā and kᵼlà ‘to send’ as klà.
The problem, however, is that there is a vowel present that bears tone. Further,
there are cases where contrasts exist based entirely upon the tone borne by the barred-i
(e.g. kᵼlā ‘coq’ vs. kᵼlā ‘string’). On the basis of such contrasts we have concluded that
the barred-i is necessary in the transcription of the language.
1.1.3 The vowel ‘o’. Unlike the Sara and the Sara Kaba languages, there is no
phonological distinction between ‘o’ and ‘ɔ’. We have not yet undertaken an analysis to
determine if the phonetic pronunciation is triggered by phonological conditions.
The pronunciation of ‘o’ changes prior to the palatal consonants ‘c’, ‘j’, and ‘ɲ’,
and sounds almost like the diphthong ‘oy’. Thus, kòckó ‘ruse’ is pronounced [kòyčkó].
This change is especially pronounced when the palatal consonant closes the syllable in
which ‘o’ is contained, and less pronounced when the palatal begins a new syllable (e.g.
òcò ‘a lot, very’, where the glide ‘y’ is barely audible).
1.2 Consonants
While the majority of the Bagirmi consonants are similar to those found in the
Sara, Bagirmi has a number of additional consonants. Like the Sara Kaba language
Kulfa, there is an ‘f’ and a ‘v’ in Bagirmi, but unlike Kulfa, there is no ‘mv’. The
consonant ‘c’ [č] is common in Bagirmi, while it is a rare phoneme in the few Sara and
Sara Kaba languages where it is found. Unlike the Sara and Sara Kaba languages,
Bagirmi also uses the consonant ‘z’ and ‘š’, although they are both relatively rare, and
most commonly found in Arabic loan words. They are found, nonetheless, in a few
words that do not appear to be loans (e.g. ìzìn ‘permission’). The implosive palatal ‘ƴ’
corresponds to the Kulfa post-alveolar implosive ‘ɗy’:
Kulfa Bagirmi English
kīɗyō kí/ƴò ‘to weave’
nàɗyà nàƴà ‘to spread’
kòɗyò kóƴò ‘to give birth’
áɗyà áƴà ‘to save, cure’
kùɗyà kíƴà ‘to cut’
tɔ́ɗyɔ̀ ndóƴò ‘to raise, straighten’
1.4 Tone
Like the Sara and Sara Kaba languages, the tone-bearing phonemes in Bagirmi
morphemes can have one of three even tones. High tone is marked with an acute accent,
Low tone with a grave accent, and Mid tone with a bar. In addition, there exists a fourth
contour tone in Bagirmi, High-Low, which has an important grammatical role in verb
conjugations. This tone is indicated by a circumflex accent. Examples are given below
with the letter ‘a’:
High Tone: á
Mid Tone: ā
Low Tone: à
HighLow: â
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The HighLow tone appears almost exclusively in conjugated verbs, and will be
discussed in Section 2.1.3.5 below. It is pronounced shorter than a combination of High-
Low tone. To avoid confusion between them, High-Low tone on a single vowel will be
written HighLow (without a hyphen).
1.4.1 Distribution of Tone
Words with a single tone make up less than 8% of native mono-morphemic words
(152 of 1954). 1 The tone distribution among words with a single tone is fairly even (63
High tone, 44 Mid tone, 45 Low tone). The majority of morphemes, approximately 70%
(1373 of 1954), are bi-tonal. Of these, approximately 59% (815 of 1373), have either the
tone pattern Low-Low or High-Low, and another 20% (272 of 1373) have Mid-Mid tone.
Hence, of 9 possible tonal patterns for bi-tonal morphemes, approximately 80% have
one these three common tonal patterns. Morphemes with 3 tones make up around 17%
(337 of 1954) of native morphemes. Of these, over 62% (210 of 337) bear Low-Low-
Low, Low-High-Low, High-Low-Low, or High-High-Low, and over 10% (36 of 337)
have the tone Mid-Mid-Mid. Hence, of 27 possible tonal combinations for tri-tonal
morphemes, 72% fall into 5 sequences.
Overall, then, we find that, for polysyllabic morphemes, there is a remarkable
preponderance of sequences of either Low tones or High-Low tones. A second important
tone pattern is where all the tones are Mid. Other tonal patterns are far less common,
and many are extremely rare or non-existent. 2
1.4.2 Tone Marking for Verbs
Perhaps the largest verb class in Bagirmi is one in which the third person form
with a specified object bears the tone Low-Low, but the 1st person singular, 2nd person
singular and 3rd person singular with a pronominal object bears the tone High-Low.
These verbs are listed in the lexicon with High-Low tone.
The second largest class of verbs is one in which the third person form with a
specified object also bears the tone Low-Low, but where the 1st person singular, 2nd
person singular and 3rd person singular with a pronominal object bears the tone Mid-
Mid. These verbs have been listed in the lexicon with the tone Mid-Mid. Hence, it is the
2nd person singular form of a verb in simple aspect which will appear as the lexicon
entry.

1 In analyzing tone within morphemes we have looked only at native Bagirmi words which are
mono-morphemic. These make up 1954 words out of the approximately 2438 currently in the
lexicon.
2 An analysis of 1373 bi-tonal morphemes gives us the following breakdown:
High-High Tone: 57 of 1373 - 4,151%
High-Mid Tone: 80 of 1373 - 5,83%
High-Low Tone: 353 of 1373 - 25,71%
Mid-High Tone: 46 of 1373 - 3,35%
Mid-Mid Tone: 272 of 1373 - 19,81%
Mid-Low Tone: 0 of 1373 - 0%
Low-High Tone: 56 of 1373 - 4,079%
Low-Mid Tone: 47 of 1373 - 3,42%
Low-Low Tone: 462 of 1373 - 33,65%
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1.4.3 Optional Variation in Tone
A large number of morphemes which bear Low-Low tone permit the final Low
tone to become High when in final position. Final position can be sentence final
position, clause final position when there is a pause, and the word spoken in isolation.3
The change is completely optional, and Bagirmi speakers are normally unaware they are
doing it.4 However, not all words permit this change. We have made an attempt to
identify those that do, and they will be labeled in the lexicon with a slash followed by
the final high-tone vowel (e.g. dᵼbà (/á) ‘dipper for water’).
1.4.4 Word-final tone rising
Another important process affects the word-final tone when the word is in non-
final position in a clause. This change affects words bearing a High tone in the
penultimate syllable causing the tone of the final syllable to become high in quick
speech:
pᵼɗǝ ‘to pour’
Gəɗ ná kùn ná tōkkó-ɲ èlí, pᵼɗə kōŕ ná njélè.
Leper Spec. taking Spec. ability-his not, pouring off Spec. he.knows.
A leper cannot pick things up but he’s good at pouring things out.
cídà ‘work’
Cídá-í ná nòkó gà ná, mbōy dèɓ kéɗē kᵼmá-ī.
Work-your Spec. is.much already Spec, look.for person one to.help-you.
If you have a lot of work, look for somebody to help you.
sᵼwǝ ‘to remove, take off’
Jᵼ-gè sᵼwə ndārá bàt ná ān tāɗ sè gàngá.
We-want to.remove skin sheep the to make with.it drum.
We want to remove the sheepskin in order to make a drum with it.
A thorough examination of this process has not yet been undertaken and there
are inconsistencies in this lexicon as to whether the tone change is marked in the sample
sentences.
1.4.5 Emphasis and Tonal Change
Unlike the Sara or Sara Kaba Languages, in Bagirmi change in tone can also be
used to indicate surprise, emphasis, etc. Consider the variation of tone with the verb
njélè ‘to know’ in the following three sentences:
Mᵼ-dᵼgá-ī ŋōn-íɲ ná njèlè. ‘I told you that his child knows.’
ɗī gé! ŋōn-íɲ njèlé? ‘What! His child knows?’
áwà, njélē. ‘Yes, he knows.’

3 Mahamat Idriss Djibrine has suggested that we indicate pauses at the end of a clause by means
of a comma.
4 This caused great confusion in the tone-marking of earlier version of this work, as a word like
bᵼɗà ‘pool, puddle’ might be pronounced bᵼɗà or bᵼɗá when spoken in isolation.
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