Social:Mesqan language

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Short description: Semitic language of Ethiopia
Mesqan
Mäsqan
Native toEthiopia
RegionGurage Zone
Native speakers
200,000 (2007)[1]
Ge'ez script[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mvz
Glottologmesq1240[3]

Mesqan (also Mäsqan or Meskan) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Gurage people in the Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. It belongs to the family's Ethiopian Semitic branch.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab. plain lab.
Nasal m mʷ n ɲ
Stop/
Affricate 		voiceless (p) t t͡ʃ c k kʷ
voiced b bʷ d d͡ʒ ɟ g ɡʷ
ejective (pʼ) tʼ t͡ʃʼ cʼ kʼ kʼʷ
Fricative voiceless f fʷ s ʃ ç x xʷ h
voiced (v) z ʒ
ejective (sʼ)
Rhotic r
Lateral l
Approximant j w
  • Sounds /p, pʼ, v, sʼ/ occur in loanwords, mainly from Amharic.
  • /xʷ/ may also have an allophone of [hʷ].
  • /b/ may have an allophone of [β] in postvocalic and intervocalic positions.
  • /n/ may assimilate to [ŋ] when following a velar consonant.[4]
  • /k, ɡ/ can also be heard as palatalized [kʲ, ɡʲ] when before front vowels.[5][6]

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Mid e ə o
Open a

References

  1. ↑ Mesqan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ "Modern Gurage Orthography Additions to Ethiopic Script". https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21037-gurage-adds.pdf. 
  3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Mesqan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mesq1240. 
  4. ↑ Shafi, Ousman; Meyer, Ronny (2016). Mesqan. 
  5. ↑ Eshetu, Meseret (2012). Tense, aspect and mood in Mesqan. Addis Ababa University. pp. 19-20. 
  6. ↑ Getachew, Alemayehu (2011). Mesqan folktales: A contribution to the documentation of the Mesqan language. Addis Ababa University. pp. 10-11. 



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