Nara_language

Nara language

Nara language

Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Eritrea

For the languages of Southern Africa and Papua New Guinea, see Naro language and Lala language (Papua New Guinea).

The Nara (Nera) or Barea (Barya) language is spoken by the Nara people in an area just to the north of Barentu in the Gash-Barka Region of western Eritrea.[2] The language is often confused with Kunama, which is at best only distantly related.

Quick Facts Native to, Region ...

The endangerment status of Nara is unclear. According to Glottolog it is not endangered, but according to Tsige Hailemichael, the "...Nara language is in danger of quickly disappearing."[3]

Nara has been classified as Northern Eastern Sudanic by Rilly (2009:2),[4] but Glottolog considers the evidence unpersuasive and classifies Nara as an isolate.[5]

Dialects

There are four Nara dialects according to Rilly (2010:178):[6]

Higir and Mogoreeb are the larger tribes, while Saantoorta and Koyta are smaller tribes (Rilly 2010:178).

Phonology

Consonants

More information Labial, Alveolar ...
  • Other sounds such as [z, c, kʼ, x, ʔ] occur from Tigre and Arabic.[7]

Vowels

More information Front, Central ...

References

  1. [1]
    Nara at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. [2]
    "Ethnologue report for language code:nrb". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  3. [3]
    Hailemichael, Tsige (2005-11-05). "Once Upon a Time… in Nara Language". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  4. [4]
    Rilly, Claude. 2009. From the Yellow Nile to the Blue Nile: The quest for water and the diffusion of Northern East Sudanic languages from the fourth to the first millennia BCE. Paper presented at ECAS 2009 (3rd European Conference on African Studies, Panel 142: African waters – water in Africa, barriers, paths, and resources: their impact on language, literature and history of people) in Leipzig, 4 to 7 June 2009.
  5. [5]
    "Glottolog 4.4 – Nara".
  6. [6]
    Rilly, Claude. 2010. Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-9042922372
  7. [7]
    Thompson, David E. (1976). Nera. In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.), The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia: Michigan State University. pp. 484–494.

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