Manza language

Manza (Mānzā, Mandja) is a Ubangian language spoken by the Mandja people of the Central African Republic. It is closely related to Ngbaka and may be to some extent mutually intelligible.

Manza
Mandja
Native to	Central African Republic
Ethnicity	Mandja
Native speakers	(220,000 cited 1996)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Savannas Gbaya Eastern Gbanu–Ngbaka Manza Manza
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mzv
Glottolog	manz1243

Phonology

The phonology consists of the following:

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio- velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	(ɲ)	ŋ	ŋ͡m
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	k͡p
	voiced	b	d		ɡ	ɡ͡b
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ	ᵑᵐɡ͡b
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s				h
	voiced	v	z
	prenasal		ⁿz
Tap		ⱱ	ɾ
Approximant			(l)	j		w

• Sounds /ɾ/ and /ⱱ/ are very rare in word-initial position.
• /ⁿz/ can be heard in free variation as a prenasal affricate sound [ⁿd͡ʒ].
• [l] is only heard in free variation of /j/.
• /j/ can be heard as [ɲ] when preceding a nasal vowel.

Vowels

Oral vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

• /a/ can have an allophone of [ɐ], when in complementary distribution.

Nasal vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ĩ		ũ
Open-mid	ɛ̃		ɔ̃
Open		ã

• The nasalization of /ɛ̃/ may also be heard more lower as [æ̃] in free variation.

Writing system

Manza alphabet

a

b

bh

d

dh

e

ɛ

f

g

gb

h

i

k

kp

l

m

mb

n

nd

ndj

ngb

ŋ

ŋg

ŋm

o

ɔ

p

r

s

t

u

v

vb

w

y

z

The tones are indicated on the letters using diacritics:

• the middle tone is indicated using the umlaut: ⟨ä, ë, ɛ̈, ï, ö, ɔ̈, ü⟩ ;
• the high tone is indicated using the circumflex accent: ⟨â, ê, ɛ̂, î, ô, ɔ̂, û⟩.

References

Works cited

• Ngodi, Edmond; Gounoukon, Orphe-Magloire; Moore, Troy (2017). Hârâ nɛ mɛ̈ yɔ̂ rɔ̂ nû mandja [Lire et écrire en mandja] (3 ed.). Bangui: Association centrafricaine pour la traduction de la Bible et d’alphabétisation (ACATBA) et SIL International.