Daza language

Not to be confused with Dazawa language.

"Goran language" redirects here. Not to be confused with Gorani language or Gora dialect.

Daza
Dazaga
Native to	Chad and Niger
Region	BET Region, Bahr el Gazel Region, Batha, Borkou, Hadjer-Lamis, Kanem, Lac, Wadi-Fira, Diffa, Zinder
Ethnicity	Toubou
Native speakers	700,000 (2019–2021)
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Saharan Western Tebu Daza
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dzg
Glottolog	daza1242
Linguasphere	02-BAA-ab

Daza (also known as Dazaga) is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Daza people (a sub-group of the Toubou people) inhabiting northern Chad and eastern Niger. The Daza are also known as the Gouran (Gorane) in Chad. Dazaga is spoken by around 700,000 people, primarily in the Djurab Desert region and the Borkou region, locally called Haya or Faya-Largeau northern-central Chad, the capital of the Dazaga people. Dazaga is spoken in the Tibesti Mountains of Chad (606,000 speakers), in eastern Niger near N'guigmi and to the north (93,200 speakers). It is also spoken to a smaller extent in Libya and in Sudan, where there is a community of 3,000 speakers in the city of Omdurman. There's also a small diaspora community working in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The two primary dialects of the Dazaga language are Daza and Kara, but there are several other mutually intelligible dialects, including Kaga, Kanobo, Taruge and Azza. It is closely related to the Tedaga language, spoken by the Teda, the other out of the two Toubou people groups, who reside primarily in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad and in southern Libya near the city of Sabha.

Dazaga is a Nilo-Saharan language and a member of the Western Saharan branch of the Saharan subgroup which also contains the Kanuri language, Kanembu language and Tebu languages. Tebu is further divided into Tedaga and Dazaga. The Eastern Saharan branch includes the Zaghawa language and Berti language.

Vocabulary

The dialects spoken in Chad and Niger have some French influence whereas the dialects spoken in Libya and Sudan have more of an Arabic influence. The Dazaga language was not traditionally a written language but in recent years the SIL had developed an orthography. The majority of Dazaga speakers are bilingual or multilingual in their native tongue along with either Arabic, French, Zaghawa, Hausa, Zarma, Kanuri or Tuareg. There are thus many borrowings from other languages such as Arabic, Hausa or French. For example, the word for "thank you" is borrowed from Arabic shokran and incorporated into the language by usually being followed by the suffix -num marking the second person.

The following tables contain words from the Daza dialect spoken in Omdurman, Sudan. This romanisation is not standard.

Numbers

English	Dazaga	English	Dazaga
One	Tron	Eleven	Murdai sa Tron
Two	Jow	Twelve	Murdai sa Jow
Three	Aguzo	Thirteen	Murdai sa Aguzo
Four	Twzo	Fourteen	Murdai sa Twzo
Five	Foo	Fifteen	Murdai sa Foo
Six	Disi	Sixteen	Murdai sa Disi
Seven	Troso	Seventeen	Murdai sa Troso
Eight	Woso	Eighteen	Murdai sa Woso
Nine	Yisi	Nineteen	Murdai sa Yisi
Ten	Murdum	Twenty	Digiram
Thirty	Murtta Aguzo	Fifty	Murtta Foo
Forty	Murtta Twzo	Hundred	Kidri

Basic words and phrases

English	Dazaga	English	Dazaga
man	Agni	Good Morning	Wasa Nisira
woman	Ari	Good Night	Kalar Sizoo
family	Ama tanga	Thank you	alay barkantchân
brother	Dagi	My name is...	Tan Sortanjo
sister	Duroo	What is your name?	Sornuma Jaa? or sornuma eni'
papa	Abaa	How are you?	neré wasi?
mama	Aya	I am well	Kala Layy or Tan Wasu or wasa a'
friend	Lao	Please	toussowna
world	Dina	Country	Ni
dead	Noso	Religion	Din
people	Amma	Better	Bouré
East	Mah	West	Jeh
North	Yallh	South	Onoum

The Azza are a blacksmith class who speak their own dialect of the language, referred to as Azzanga, which is considered by Dagaza speakers to be lower in status then the standard dialect.

Phonology

The phonology of Daza is as follows:

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	b	t d	tʃ dʒ	k ɡ
Fricative	f	s z	(ʃ)		h
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Flap		ɾ
Lateral		l
Approximant	w		j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	e		o
	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

Tone

Dagaza showcases 4 distinct tones, high, low, rising, and falling, although the occurrence of rising and falling tones is limited to just a few specific contexts and no word exists which only contains low tones. For this reason, there is debate as to whether these truly represent 4 distinct tonemes or if instead Dagaza has a pitch accent system.

Grammar

The Daza language exhibits a subject-object-verb word order, as can be seen in the following example:

à̰ʊ̰́

à̰ʊ̰́

man

áɪ̀

áɪ̀

this

dɪ́lɪ̀mɪ̀

dɪ́lɪ̀m=ɪ̀

leprosy=ERG

[káá]

kɛ́ɛ́-a

hand-PL

[sʊ́nà]

sʊ́n-à

3S.POSS-PL

ɡɔ́ɾʊ̀

Ø-j-kɔ́ɾ

3.OBJ-3-cut

à̰ʊ̰́ áɪ̀ dɪ́lɪ̀mɪ̀ [káá] [sʊ́nà] ɡɔ́ɾʊ̀

à̰ʊ̰́ áɪ̀ dɪ́lɪ̀m=ɪ̀ kɛ́ɛ́-a sʊ́n-à Ø-j-kɔ́ɾ

man this leprosy=ERG hand-PL 3S.POSS-PL 3.OBJ-3-cut

‘This man, leprosy cut his hands.’

There are no grammatical genders in Dagaza, and biological gender is indicated with separate lexical items for male and female.

Adding the adjectivalizer suffix -ɾ́ɛ at the end of a word forms adjectives from nouns, verbs, and occasionally even other adjectives.

Verbs are inflected for both subject and object arguments. This inflection is sensitive to grammatical person, but not number, gender, or other features of the subject and object.

To signify presentational possession (exemplified by the have verb in English, e.g. "I have a computer"), Dazaga utilizes a transitive "have-verb" strategy where the possessor is the subject and the possessum is the object, similar to how this construction is made in English. The following example shows presentational possession in Dazaga:

jɛ́ɡɛ̀

jɛ́ɡɛ̀

house

ɡòdúù

ɡòdú=ù

clay=GEN.SG

déì

Ø-j-téi

3.OBJ-3-have

jɛ́ɡɛ̀ ɡòdúù déì

jɛ́ɡɛ̀ ɡòdú=ù Ø-j-téi

house clay=GEN.SG 3.OBJ-3-have

'He has a house of clay.’

Dazaga uses clitic case markers for four cases: ergative, accusative, genitive, and dative. The marking of case is sensitive to an Animacy Hierarchy: the accusative enclitic /=ɡà/ encodes the object of a transitive verb when it is a high animacy referent (personal pronouns). For all other object referents, this clitic is optional.

Interrogatives are indicated in two ways; yes/no questions are formed by attaching the clitic -ra to the end of the verb, information questions are indicated by the presence by equivalents to wh- question words in english at the end of the phrase.

External links

• Relative Clauses in Dazaga [1] Archived 2016-03-11 at the Wayback Machine