Nizaa language

Not to be confused with Nimbari language, sometimes also known as Niam-Niam.

Nizaa
Galim, Nyemnyem, Nyamnyam, Suga
Native to	Cameroon
Region	Adamawa Region
Native speakers	(10,000 cited 1985)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Northern Bantoid Mambiloid Nizaa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sgi
Glottolog	suga1248
Map of the Mambiloid languages of northern Cameroon and southeastern Nigeria, with the Nizaa language in yellow.

Map of ethnic groups in Adamawa Region with 'Suga' (slightly left of the center) representing the Nizaa people.

Nizaa (Nizaa pronunciation: [nɪ˦zʌː˧˨]), also known as Galim, Nyemnyem, Nyamnyam, and Suga, is an endangered Mambiloid language spoken in the Adamawa Region of northern Cameroon. Most of the language's speakers live in and around the village of Galim, in the department of Faro-et-Déo.

Nizaa has a complex phonetic inventory consisting of 65 consonant phonemes as well as numerous tones; in terms of grammar, it preserves verbal morphology much more than is typical for the Mambiloid languages. Nizaa was first extensively studied and documented in the 1990s, by Norwegian linguists Rolf Theil Endresen and Bjørghild Kjelsvik. The language is currently endangered, but the exact number of active speakers is unknown due to the last census of speakers taking place in 1985.

Name

Nizaa is also referred to as Suga, Galim, and Nyemnyem (or Nyamnyam). Nizaa is the endonym for the people who speak the language, while Suga comes from Pero súgò 'stranger' or 'not Pero'. Nyamnyam (or Nyemnyem) is a pejorative term likely derived from the Fula word nyaamnyaamjo 'cannibal' which is further derived from nyam-nyam 'to eat', while Galim is the main town of the Nizaa people.

Demography and distribution

Nizaa is primarily spoken in and around the village of Galim, located in Faro-et-Déo in the Adamawa Region of northern Cameroon; the village has roughly 2,000 inhabitants. The most recent census of speakers was carried out in 1985 and reported 10,000 people actively speaking the language. The Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) estimated only 2,000 speakers however, so the actual amount of speakers is unknown. The language is classified as endangered.

The Nizaa people themselves are primarily farmers who grow maize, though other crops such as yams, millet, sorghum, peanuts, and cassava are also grown. Cattle herding and, to a lesser extent, hunting are also popular among the Nizaa. Most Nizaa practice Islam, though some do practice Christianity or traditional African religions. The Nizaa are divided into various different clans, each with their own sacred animal which they do not eat or harm; traditionally, it was thought that these animals helped a clan in some stressful situation in the mythological past.

Most Nizaa are not literate, and the few who are often only can read and write Fula in the Ajami script of Arabic. The Latin romanization of Nizaa also has not widely been adopted by the Nizaa people yet because of the low literacy of the Nizaa. Several other languages are spoken in the region, and most Nizaa speakers are bilingual in Fula, since it is essentially the lingua franca of northern Cameroon. Many also know Hausa or French.

Documentation

The language was first studied extensively in the 1990s, by Norwegian linguist Rolf Theil Endresen at the University of Oslo, in research that was supported financially by the Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. Before this, no comprehensive documentation of Nizaa had been undertaken, though certain imprecise details of the language were known as early as 1932. Furthermore, because another language existed in Adamawa Region also called 'nyamnyam', linguists often confused the two languages, and the exact classification of Nizaa was in doubt before extensive documentation began in the 1990s. Theil Endresen devised the romanization system of Nizaa and published the first analysis of the language; he also supervised later research on Nizaa by his student, Bjørghild Kjelsvik. Kjelsvik began her work in the Nizaa community via the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon, which documented local languages in addition to engaging in evangelical conversion work.

A picture of Rolf Theil Endresen, who was the first linguist to extensively document Nizaa.

Phonology and orthography

Vowels

When the orthography differs from the phonetic representation, it is shown in angle brackets. The Nizaa language has five phonemic short oral vowels, ten phonemic long oral vowels, and seven phonemic long nasal vowels. A possible eighth nasalized vowel also exists in older speakers of Nizaa. In Endresen's original romanization, nasalized vowels were indicated by adding an ogonek, but Kjelsvik's revised romanization indicates such vowels by adding ⟨ŋ⟩ after the vowel.

	Short oral vowels		Long oral vowels				Long nasal vowels
	Front	Back	Front	Central	Back		Front	Central	Back
					unrounded	rounded			unrounded	rounded
Close	ɪ ~ ɯ ⟨i⟩	ʊ ~ ʏ ⟨u⟩	iː ⟨ii⟩	ɯː ⟨ʉʉ⟩		uː ⟨uu⟩	ĩː ⟨iiŋ⟩	ɯ̃ː ⟨ʉʉŋ⟩		ũː ⟨uuŋ⟩
Close-mid	e ~ ɤ ⟨e⟩	o ~ ø ⟨o⟩	eː ⟨ee⟩	ɤː ⟨əə⟩		oː ⟨oo⟩	ɛ̃ː ⟨ɛɛŋ⟩	ʌ̃ː ⟨ααŋ⟩		ɔ̃ː ⟨ɔɔŋ⟩
Open-mid			ɛ ⟨ɛɛ⟩	ʌ ⟨αα⟩		ɔ ⟨ɔɔ⟩
Open	a		aː ⟨aa⟩				ãː ⟨aaŋ⟩

Consonants

When the orthography differs from the phonetic representation, it is shown in angle brackets. Nizaa has complex phonemic inventory with 65 phonemic consonants, including five marginal phonemes, or phonemes that occur infrequently in the language.

		Labial		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Velar		Labial– velar	Glottal
		plain	lab.	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	plain	lab.		plain	lab.
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	pʷ ⟨pw⟩	t	tʷ ⟨tw⟩	tʃ ⟨c⟩	tʃʷ ⟨cw⟩	k	kʷ ⟨kw⟩	k͡p ⟨kp⟩	(ʔ)	(ʔʷ)
	voiced	b	bʷ ⟨bw⟩	d	dʷ ⟨dw⟩	dʒ ⟨j⟩	dʒʷ ⟨jw⟩	ɡ	ɡʷ ⟨gw⟩	ɡ͡b ⟨gb⟩
	prenasalized	ᵐb ⟨mb⟩	ᵐbʷ ⟨mbw⟩	ⁿd ⟨nd⟩	ⁿdʷ ⟨ndw⟩	ᶮdʒ ⟨nj⟩	ᶮdʒʷ ⟨njw⟩	ᵑg ⟨ŋg⟩	ᵑgʷ ⟨ŋgw⟩	͡ᵑᵐɡ͡b ⟨mgb⟩
	implosive	ɓ	ɓʷ ⟨ɓw⟩	ɗ	ɗʷ ⟨ɗw⟩
	prenasalized implosive	ᵐɓ ⟨mɓ⟩	ᵐɓʷ ⟨mɓw⟩	ⁿɗ ⟨nɗ⟩	ⁿɗʷ ⟨nɗw⟩
Nasal		m	mʷ ⟨mw⟩	n	nʷ ⟨nw⟩	ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ɲʷ ⟨nyw⟩
Approximant	voiced			l	lʷ ⟨lw⟩	j ⟨y⟩	ɥ ⟨yw⟩			w
	nasalized							ɰ̃ ⟨ŋ⟩		w̃ ⟨ŋw⟩
Fricative	voiceless	f	fʷ ⟨fw⟩	s	sʷ ⟨sw⟩	ʃ ⟨sh⟩	ʃʷ ⟨shw⟩	(x ⟨h⟩)			h
	voiced	v		z	zʷ ⟨zw⟩			(ɣ ⟨gh⟩)
	prenasalized	ᶬv ⟨mv⟩		ⁿz ⟨nz⟩
Tap or Flap		(ⱱ̟ ~ ⱱ ⟨vb⟩)		ɾ ⟨r⟩	ɾʷ ⟨rw⟩

The consonants in parentheses are marginal: the labial flap is only found in ideophones, and the voiced velar fricative is only found intervocalically to distinguish disyllabic morphemes from compounds. The two glottal stops are also marginal and are not written in the orthography. /x/ also is only distinguished from /h/ in one word, and is not consequently, is represented the same as /h/ in the orthography.

Tonology

Nizaa has three phonemic tone levels: high (H), mid (M), and low (L), as well as a number of two and three-tone tone contours, which are indicated in the orthography using a variety of diacritics. Verb roots can only use the high or mid tones, unlike nouns, which may use any of the three levels. Tones regularly participate in grammatical processes and are indicated in the orthography with a grave accent (low), nothing (mid), and an acute accent (high).

Syllable structure

Nizaa has three allowed syllable types: CV, CVV, and CVC, where C represents a consonant, V a short vowel, and VV a long vowel (which may be nasalized or not). The syllable structure V (a single short vowel) exists only in the particle a, which has various meanings based on the tone used; these include the copula á, which takes a high tone. Monosyllabic nouns can only have the syllable structures CVV and CVC, while monosyllabic verbs can have all allowed syllable structures (CV, CVV, CVC).

Nizaa only permits certain consonants to act as codas, meaning consonants that follow the vowel in a syllable; these are /p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, ŋ, w, w̃, j, ɾ/. The consonants /d/ and /j/ are fairly marginal as codas, only being found in ideophones and loanwords.

Morphophonology

Various morphophonological processes lower vowels to /a/ in Nizaa. These processes are often found in verbal derivations and irregular noun plurals. Syllables also weaken in the imperfective aspect: syllables ending in /b/ end with /w/; syllables ending in /w̃/ end with /m/; syllables ending in /n/ nasalize the vowel; syllables ending in /g/ end in a high tone and raise the vowel (i.e. /a/ to /ʌ́/); syllables ending in nasal vowels raise and lengthen the vowel.

Grammar

Word order

Nizaa generally uses SVO word order, and is generally head-initial (the head or main element of a clause comes before its modifiers); however, in noun phrases, the language does not strongly favor putting the main noun before or after its modifiers. The language primarily uses postpositions, though there is evidence of at least one preposition. The possessor always precedes the possessee in genitive constructions and most adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals also always precede the noun they modify. Relative clauses follow the noun they modify and usually carry no overt grammatical marking. The following examples of Nizaa nominal constructions are given in Kjelsvik (2002):

Associative construction:

mbírā́m

child

ndùùŋ

sack

mbírā́m ndùùŋ

child sack

'the child's sack'

Noun and adjective:

nyánì

language

nízαὰ

Nizaa

nyánì nízαὰ

language Nizaa

'the Nizaa language'

Noun and demonstrative:

nìì

person

làw

DEM

nìì làw

person DEM

'this/that person'

Two nouns:

sìì

house

yîm

medicine

sìì yîm

house medicine

'hospital'

Relative clause:

nìì

person

nwààŋ

fight

njèwā̀

tires

fà

NEG

díwurḗ

come-PRF.DETR

nìì nwààŋ njèwā̀ fà díwurḗ

person fight tires NEG come-PRF.DETR

'a person who does not tire of fighting, has come'

Prepositional phrase (comitative):

wú

COM

wā̀n

chief

wú wā̀n

COM chief

'with the chief'

Postpositional phrase:

wûr

field

ndiŋ

in

wûr ndiŋ

field in

'in the field'

Locative:

cún

tree

ɓirâ

head-LOC

cún ɓirâ

tree head-LOC

'in the tree top'

Nouns and pronouns

Definiteness on nouns is marked by adding a low tone. The marking for plurals depends on the animacy of the noun: when the noun is animate, ie. is a human or an animal, the suffix -wu is added, and when the noun is inanimate, the suffix -ya is added. No case-marking exists in Nizaa, with the exception of the locative, though this may be an enclitic instead.

Pronouns have three forms: their isolated versions, the versions when combined with the copula á, and their versions in context. Logophoric and honorific forms also exist for some pronouns, and a vocative second-person plural pronoun exists as well. Pronouns have singular and plural forms.

Verbs

Nizaa preserves verbal morphology in general (by having more verb forms) much more than most other languages of the Mambiloid family.

Nizaa verb roots are monosyllabic, with a mid (M) or high (H) tone, but extra elements can be added to change the original meaning of the verb or for grammatical purposes. For example, four directional suffixes, which serve to identify the path of motion verbs, were described by Kjelsvik (2002), which are the illative -a, which indicates "motion into an enclosure"; the allative -ri, indicating "motion towards a location, often the deictic centre of the sentence"; the distantive -wa, indicating "motion away from a location, or from the deictic center"; and the sublative suffix -sa, indicating "motion towards a lower location". In addition to these directional extensions, Kjelsvik also describes a "completive" suffix, indicating "totality", as well as several verb number indicators.

The various inflectional suffixes in Nizaa include a "habitual/imperfective"; a "perfective/stative"; a "perfect intransitive", which prevents the mention of any further verb arguments without changing valency; and a "perfect transitive", which is used when any further arguments are present in a sentence. Progressive, imperative, and participlizing suffixes also exist, as well as suffixes negating the original verb, and a "detransitivizer" suffix which acts as a clitic to remove the transitivity of verbs it is attached to.

A stacking of up to three extensions to a single verb is grammatical in Nizaa. Up to four verbs may occur in one sentence in Nizaa, though it is uncertain whether these are serial verb constructions or just lexical compounds, which occur in many other West African languages. The following examples of Nizaa verb constructions are given in Kjelsvik (2002):

ge

go

kwɛɛ

find

jʉʉŋ

return

ŋu

3SG

mάάŋ

friend

ge kwɛɛ jʉʉŋ ŋu mάάŋ

go find return 3SG friend

'He went and found his friend again.'

à

AUX

yí

LOG

seghə́ə́

mother-in-law

gè

go

nyin

speak

ni

give

càŋw

again

à yí seghə́ə́ gè nyin ni càŋw

AUX LOG {mother-in-law} go speak give again

'... so that (it) will go to greet my mother-in-law.'

mbéw

monkey

ɗàà

other

kǔm

while

bαά

seek

tαάŋ

eat

yɛɛ

change

jíwcí

roam-PRES

ŋú

3SG

cún

tree

yɛ̀ɛ̀

fruit

konā̀

bush-LOC

ā̀

AUX

nǎm̀

hyena-DEF

di

come

kwɛɛkìwí

find-TOT-PST

mbéw ɗàà kǔm bαά tαάŋ yɛɛ jíwcí ŋú cún yɛ̀ɛ̀ konā̀ ā̀ nǎm̀ di kwɛɛkìwí

monkey other while seek eat change roam-PRES 3SG tree fruit bush-LOC AUX hyena-DEF come find-TOT-PST

'A monkey who just then was roaming about seeking and eating his tree nuts in the bush, came and found the hyena.'

Kinship

The Nizaa language does not distinguish mothers and maternal aunts or fathers and paternal uncles from each other, calling them maaŋ and táá respectively. However, maternal uncles and paternal aunts have separate terms to distinguish them from maternal aunts/mothers and paternal uncles/fathers. The Nizaa language does not distinguish maternal and paternal grandparents either. Separate terms exist for older sisters and brothers, but there is no distinction of sex for younger siblings. The terms for older sister díí and older brother daà are also used as generic terms for polite address, while addressing someone as a younger sibling nā́m is seen as disrespectful. The terms for cousins are the same as the ones for siblings and also depend on the age of the cousin. A generic term for in-laws, jwììŋ, also exists.

Sample text

A sample sentence in Nizaa from Kjelsvik (2002) is shown below:

ŋu wààwu

3SG grandchild-PL

se

see

kekirā́,

know-TOT-PRF.DETR

ɓulαὰŋ

they.3PL-these.DEM.PROX

sewu

see-PST

mbân

place

kùù

grandpa

fɔ́ɔ̀

staff-DF

ɗag

fall

gewunâ,

go-PST-PCPL

yɛ́ɛ́wú-ŋwā́

will-STAT-NEG

kùù

grandpa

kpááŋ

talk

nìwà.

give-SUB

{ŋu wààwu} se kekirā́, ɓulαὰŋ sewu mbân kùù fɔ́ɔ̀ ɗag gewunâ, yɛ́ɛ́wú-ŋwā́ kùù kpááŋ nìwà.

{3SG grandchild-PL} see know-TOT-PRF.DETR they.3PL-these.DEM.PROX see-PST place grandpa staff-DF fall go-PST-PCPL will-STAT-NEG grandpa talk give-SUB

'His grandchildren have seen and know, they saw the place grandpa's staff went and fell into, they do not want to tell him.'