Mafa is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria by the Mafa people.

Mafa
Mafahay
Native toCameroon, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Sierra Leone, Sudan
RegionFar North Province, Borno State, Adamawa State
Native speakers
2,000,000 (2005)[1]
Afro-Asiatic
Language codes
ISO 639-3maf
Glottologmafa1239

Dialects

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Mafa is widely spoken in the department of Mayo-Tsanaga from Mokolo to the north. Mafa includes the following dialects.[2]

  • Central Mafa in Koza commune and in Mokolo town
  • West Mafa in the northwest of Mokolo Commune (Magoumaz)
  • East Mafa in the northeast (Soulede and Roua communes)

There are 136,000 speakers in Cameroon.[2]

Phonology

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Vowels

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Front Central Back
Close i ɨ ʉ u
Open-mid ɛ œ ɔ
Open a

Consonants

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Labial Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain sibilant plain lab. plain lab.
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Stop/
Affricate
voiceless p t t͡s t͡ʃ k ʔ
voiced b d d͡z d͡ʒ ɡ ɡʷ
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ⁿd͡z ⁿd͡ʒ ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ
implosive ɓ ɗ
Fricative voiceless f ɬ s ʃ h
voiced v ɮ z ʒ ɣ ɣʷ
Approximant l j w
Trill r
  • /ᵑɡ/ is heard as a velar nasal [ŋ] when in word-final position.[3]

Notes

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  1. ^ Mafa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b Binam Bikoi, Charles, ed. (2012). Atlas linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) [Linguistic Atlas of Cameroon]. Atlas linguistique de l'Afrique centrale (ALAC) (in French). Vol. 1: Inventaire des langues. Yaoundé: CERDOTOLA. ISBN 9789956796069.
  3. ^ Barreteau, Daniel; Le Bléis, Yves (1990). Lexique Mafa: Langue de la Famille Tchadique Parlée au Cameroun. Paris: Éditions de l'Orstom.