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Mbay language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mbay
Sara Mbay
Native toChad, Central African Republic
Native speakers
(90,000 cited 1990–1996)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3myb
Glottologmbay1241

Mbay, or Sara Mbay, is a Bongo–Bagirmi language of Chad and the Central African Republic.

It is reported that Mbay does not have independent personal pronouns. The meaning is largely carried out by subject, object, and possessive affixes attached to verbs, prepositions, and nouns. Other words, such as yá̰a̰ "thing", dèē "person", tàa "speech", and lòo "place" are used somewhat pronominally as something, somebody, something said, and somewhere.[2]

References

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  1. ^ Mbay at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Keegan, John M. 1997. A Reference Grammar of Mbay. Munich: Lincom Europa. Cited in Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 26