Majang language

Majang
Ato Majanger-Onk
Spoken in	Ethiopia
Region	Godere, Gambela Region
Ethnicity	Majang people
Native speakers	15,000
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic Surmic Majang
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mpe
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The Majang language is spoken by the Majangir of Ethiopia. Although it is a member of the Surmic cluster, this language is the most isolated one in that cluster (Fleming 1983). A language survey has shown that dialect variation from north to south is minor and does not seriously impede communication. The 2007 Ethiopian Census lists 6,433 speakers for Majang (Messengo), but also reports that the ethnic group consists of 32,822 individuals (Messengo and Mejengir).^[1] According to the census, almost no speakers can be found in Mezhenger Zone of Gambela Region; a total of eleven speakers are listed for the zone, but almost 10,000 ethnic Mejenger or Messengo people.^[2]

Phonology

Vowels of Majang^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

Vowel length is distinctive in Majang, so all vowels come in pairs of long and short, such as goopan 'punishment' and gopan 'road'. The vowel inventory is taken out Unseth (2007). Moges ^[4] claims a tenth vowel ɐ, whereas Bender (1983) was only ready to confirm six vowels. All authors agree that there is no ATR vowel harmony in the language.

Consonants of Majang^[5]

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ
Implosive		ɓ	ɗ
Tap			r
Approximant			l	j	w

Bender^[6] also claims that the glottal stop [ʔ] needs to be treated as a phoneme of Majang though Unseth refutes this.^[7]

Prosodic Features

Two tones distinguish meaning in Majang,^[8] on both the word level and the grammatical level: táŋ (higher tone) 'cow', tàŋ (lower tone) 'abscess'.

Morphology

The language has markers to indicate three different past tenses (close, mid, far past) and two future tenses (near and farther).^[9]

The language has a wide variety of suffixes, but almost no prefixes. Though its use is limited to a handful of roots, there are a few words that preserve vestiges of the archaic causative prefix i-, a prefix found in other Surmic languages and also Nilotic.^[10]

The counting system is a modified vigesimal system, based on 5, 10, and 20. "Twenty" is 'one complete person' (all fingers and toes), so 40 is 'two complete people', 100 is 'five complete people'. However, today, under the influence of schools and increased bilingualism, people generally use the Amharic or Oromo words for 100.

The person and number marking system does not mark the inclusive and exclusive we distinction,^[11] a morphological category that is found in nearby and related languages.

Syntax

Majang has a basic VSO word order, though allowing some flexibility for focus, etc. The language makes extensive use of relative clauses, including for circumstances where English would use adjectives.^[12]

References

1. ^ 2007 Census countrywide
2. ^ 2007 Census Gambella Region
3. ^ Unseth (2007), p. 628
4. ^ Moges (2007), p.114
5. ^ Unseth (1991), p. 526
6. ^ Bender (1983), p. 116
7. ^ Unseth(1991), p. 533
8. ^ Bender (1983), p. 117
9. ^ Bender (1983), p. 132
10. ^ Unseth (1998)
11. ^ Bender (1983), p. 128
12. ^ Unseth(1989)

Bibliography

• Bender, M. Lionel. 1983. "Majang Phonology and Morphology," in M. Lionel Bender, (ed.), Nilo-Saharan Language Studies, pp. 114–47. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, African Studies Center.
• Fleming, Harold. 1983. "Surmic etymolgies" in Rainer Vossen and Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst (eds.),Nilotic Studies: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Languages and History of the Nilotic Peoples. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. pp. 524–555.
• Moges Yigezu. 2007. "The Phonetics and Phonology of Majang Vowels: A Historical-Comparative Perspective” in Doris Payne and Mechthild Reh (eds.), Advances in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 255–265.
• Unseth, Peter. 1988. "Majang Nominal Plurals: With Comparative Notes," Studies in African Linguistics 19.1:75-91.
• Unseth, Peter. 1989. "Sketch of Majang Syntax," in M. Lionel Bender (ed.), Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics. (Nilo-Saharan: Linguistic Analyses and Documentation, vol. 3. Series editor Franz Rottland.) Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. pp. 97–127.
• Unseth, Peter. 1991. "Consonant Sequences and Morphophonemics in Majang" in Richard Pankhurst, Ahmed Zekaria and Taddese Beyene (eds.),Proceedings of the First National Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies. pp. 525–534.
• Unseth, Peter. 1998. "Two Old Causative Affixes in Surmic," in Gerrit Dimmendaal (ed.), Surmic Languages and Cultures. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 113–126.
• Unseth, Peter. 2007. "Mağaŋgir language" in ed. by Siegbert Uhlig (ed.) Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Vol 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 627–629.

External links

• Ethnologue information on Majang
• World Atlas of Language Structures information on Majang
• "Map of the Majang language", LL-MAP website