Mimi of Nachtigal, or Mimi-N, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1870 by Gustav Nachtigal. Nachtigal's data was subsequently published by Lukas & Voelckers (1938).[1]

Mimi of Nachtigal
Mimi-N
Native toChad
Eraattested c. 1870
Nilo-Saharan?
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologmimi1241

Classification

edit

Joseph Greenberg (1960) classified it as a Maban language, though a distant one. Subsequent researchers have supported a remote relationship, though there is little data to go on.[2]

Basic vocabulary

edit

The more stable of Mimi-N and Mimi-D's attested vocabulary is as follows:

gloss Mimi-N Mimi-D
two søn mel
eye kal dyo
fire sou
stone muguru
hand rai sil
what ɲeta
die dafaya
drink ab andʒi
dog ɲuk
moon
claw/nail fer
blood ari
one ul-un deg
tooth ziːk ɲain
eat ɲyam
hair fuːl suf (Arabic?)
water sun (Fur?) engi
nose hur fir
mouth mil ɲyo
ear kuyi feɾ
bird kabal-a
bone kadʒi
sun sey
tree su
kill kuduma
foot zaŋ rep
horn kamin
meat neŋ ɲyu
egg dʒulut
black liwuk
head kidʒ-i bo
night lem
fish gonas
see yakoe

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Lukas, Johannes; Völckers, Otto (1938). "G. Nachtigal's Aufzeichnungen über die Sprache der Mimi in Wadai". Zeitschrift für Eingeborenensprachen. 29: 145‒154.
  2. ^ Starostin, George (2011). "On Mimi". Journal of Language Relationship. 6: 115–140. doi:10.31826/jlr-2011-060111.