lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Midob (also spelt Meidob) is the language of the Midob people of North Darfur, Sudan. It is one of the Nubian languages, which are part of the Nilo-Saharan language phylum.

Midob
Native to	Sudan
Region	West
Native speakers	(50,000 cited 1993)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic Astaboran Nubian Midob
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mei
Glottolog	mido1240

Apart from in their homeland of Malha, North Darfur, Midob speakers also live in the Khartoum area (primarily in Omdurman and the Gezira region) and Jezirat Aba.[2] 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. Rilly (2010:162) lists the dialects of Urrti, Shalkota, and Torti. Only Urrti has been described in detail.

Recent research on Midob has been done by Thelwall (1983) and Werner (1993). Both studies concerned the Urrti dialect.

Phonology

The following tables show the phonological consonants and vowels without phonetic variations and without more recent Arabic loans.

Vowels

i, ii		u, uu
e, ee	ə, əə	o, oo
	a, aa

Note: All vowels occur long and short. The mid central vowel ə only appears in Midob, not in other Nubian languages.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t		c	k
	voiced	b	d		ɟ	g
Fricative		f	s	ʃ			h
Nasal		m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Approximant		w	l		j
Trill			r

Tone

Midob is a tonal language with two registers: High and Low. Tone is both lexical and grammatical.

Lexical tone

àadí	we (exclusive)
áadí	stick
àadì	light

Grammatical tone

ná	you (sgl obj)
nà	him, her

Grammar

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 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 and 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:

	Indicative	Subjunctive	Question1	Question2
Perfect	x	x	x	x
Continuous	x	x	x	x
Intentional	x	-	-	-

References

• Werner, Roland (1993) 'Tìdn-áal: A Study of Midob (Darfur-Nubian)' Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
• Thelwall, Robin (1983) 'Meidob Nubian: Phonology, Grammatical Notes and Basic Vocabulary' in Bender, M. L. (Ed), Nilo-Saharan Language Studies, V.13, East Lansing

External links

• Midob from mille langues blog
• Midob Material from the Research of Roland Werner

На других языках

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[de] Midob (Sprache)

Midob (auch Meidob) ist die Sprache der Midob in der sudanesischen Provinz Nord-Darfur. Sie ist Teil der nubischen Sprachfamilie. Die Midob nennen ihre Sprache tìd-n-áal, was mit „Mund der Midob“ übersetzt werden kann, und sich selbst bezeichnen sie als tìddí (Singular), tìd (Plural). Es werden zwei Hauptdialekte gesprochen, Urrti and Kaageddi.

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- [en] Midob language

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