Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Tera language

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Region
  
Dialects
  
Pidlimdi (Hinna)

Glottolog
  
tera1251

Native speakers
  
101,000 (2000)

ISO 639-3
  
ttr

Language family
  
Afro-AsiaticChadicBiu–MandaraTera languages (A.1)Tera

Tera is a Chadic dialect cluster spoken in north-eastern Nigeria in the north and eastern parts of Gombe State and Borno State. Blench (2006) believes Pidlimdi (Hinna) dialect is a separate language.

Contents

Phonology

^1 Voiceless plosives are lightly aspirated but unreleased before another consonant.^2 /t/ and /d/ formally had /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively as allophones but the two pairs have split; however, the alveolar plosives never precede front vowels and the postalveolar affricates rarely precede anything but front vowels.^3 /h/ is a relatively new phoneme, appearing in loanwords from English and Hausa.^4 /jˀ/ derives from a /ɗʲ/ that has lost its alveolar contact while retaining the palatal and glottal action.
  • The mid vowels /e, eː, o, oː/ are true-mid [, e̞ː, , o̞ː].
  • The open vowels /a, aː/ are central [ä, äː].
  • Vowel length contrasts are neutralized in monosyllabic words with no coda consonants.

    All vowels but /a/ and /aː/ are more open in closed syllables such as in [ɮɛp] ('to plait') and [xʊ́r] ('to cook soup'). /a/ and /aː/ tend to be fronted to [æ, æː] when following palatalized consonants.

    Diphthongs, which have the same length as long vowels, consist of a non-high vowel and a high vowel:

  • Phonetically, these diphthongs are [e̞ʊ, o̞ɪ, ɐɪ, ɐʊ].
  • Tone

    Tera is a tonal language, distinguishing high, mid and low tone. Tone is not indicated orthographically since no minimal trios exist; minimal pairs can be distinguished by context.

    Orthography

    The first publication in Tera was Labar Mbarkandu nu Yohanna Bula Ki, a translation of the Gospel of John, which established an orthographic system. In 2004, this orthographic system was revised.

    References

    Tera language Wikipedia


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