Native speakers 50,000 (1993) Glottolog mido1240 | Region West ISO 639-3 mei | |
Language family Nilo-Saharan?Eastern SudanicAstaboranNubianMidob | ||
Midob (also spelt Meidob) is the language of the Midob people in North Darfur. It is genetically part of the Nubian language family which is part of the Nilo-Saharan language phylum. Apart from their homeland, Midob speakers also live in the Khartoum area and Jezirat Aba. The Midob people call their language tìd-n-áal, literally "mouth of the Midob", and themselves tìddí (singular), tìd (plural). There are an estimated 50,000 Midob speakers in two main dialects, Urrti and Kaageddi.
Contents
Recent research on Midob has been done by Thelwall (1983) and Werner (1993). Both studies are concerned with the Urrti dialect.
Phonology
The following tables show the phonological consonants and vowels without phonetic variations and without more recent Arabic loans.
Vowels
Note: All vowels occur long and short. The mid central vowel ə only appears in Midob, not in other Nubian languages.
Tone
Midob is a tonal language with two registers: High and Low. Tone is both lexical and grammatical.
Grammatical Overview
Midob is an agglutinative language like the other Nubian languages. The default word order is SOV.
Verb
The verbs consist of:
verbal stem ( + extension ) + tense/aspect.The stem is not being altered. Extensions modify or add meaning to the verb like Negation, Intention, Affirmation, Completed action, Plurality of subject–object or action, Durative, Habitual and sometimes can be combined (especially Negation). Tense/Aspect: Midob has two basic tenses (Perfect and Continuous) plus Intentional. There are sets of suffixes for indicative, subjunctive and two question forms (to ask for a fact, i.e. "When/Why..." and to verify a fact, i.e. "Did you...").
Sets of personal endings: