Heiban_language

Heiban language

Heiban language

Niger–Congo language spoken in Sudan


The Heiban language, Ebang, or Abul, is a Niger–Congo language in the Heiban family spoken in the town of Heiban located in the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan, Sudan.

Quick Facts Native to, Region ...

Grammar

Nouns

The earliest record of the Heiban noun class system was composed by Stevenson (1956/57), in which he classified each noun class into two sections, the first being for singular form and the second for plural form. Each noun class has an indicative prefix. The separation of noun classes occurs due to the nouns belonging to a certain category. Guest (1997) further contributed to the findings of Stevenson by discovering more classification for nouns.

More information Noun Class, Singular Prefix ...

Pronouns

Pronouns in Heiban are categorised as ‘free pronouns’ or ‘bound pronouns’. Early recordings of the language, such as in the work of Guest (1997) only went as far as to mention free pronouns.

More information Subject pronoun (stand- alone), Object Infix ...

Guest further notes that in Heiban, an object or an animal may not be referred to with the 3rd person subject pronouns alone, but with the object suffix. Bound pronouns are morphemes in a verbal complex that refer to some participant but are not class specific.

More information Initial, Medial ...

Bound pronouns for 1st and 2nd person have specific forms to represent subject and object. In singular form, the subject and object may be identical in spelling but are assumed to have pronunciation differences. There is also a 1st person plural exclusive and inclusive for subject forms. Furthermore, there is a pronoun for 3rd person singular which is free of reference to any particular class.

Numbers

Heiban number
1 gwetipo
2 ram
3 thiril
4 koriŋo
5 thudhna
6 nyiril
7 Koriŋo a thiril
8 dubaŋ
9 Thudhina a koriŋa
10 die
11 die a gwepito
12 die a ram
13 die a thiril
14 Die a koriŋo
15 Die a thudhna
16 Die a nyiril
17 Die a koriŋo a thiril
18 Die a dubaŋ
19 Die a thudina a koriŋo
20 dhure

Beyond 20, the numbers proceed to 200 in a similar manner as the teens, with only the word denoting the power of 10 changing.


References

  1. Heiban at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon



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