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Mimi of Decorse

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Mimi of Decorse
Mimi-D
Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes
Native toChad
Eraattested c. 1900
Nilo-Saharan?
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologmimi1240

Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes.[1] Joseph Greenberg (1960) classified it as a Maban language, like the rather remote Maban relative Mimi of Nachtigal. However, George Starostin (2011) rejects this classification, arguing that similarities to Maban are due to contact with locally dominant Maba (the similarities are with that language specifically, not with the entire Maban family), and provisionally regards it as a language isolate, though it is suggestive of Central Sudanic.[2]

Basic vocabulary

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The more stable of Mimi-D and Mimi-N's attested vocabulary is as follows:

gloss Mimi-D Mimi-N
two mel søn
eye dyo kal
fire sou
stone muguru
hand sil rai
what ɲeta
die dafaya
drink andʒi ab
dog ɲuk
moon
claw/nail fer
blood ari
one deg ul-un
tooth ɲain ziːk
eat ɲyam
hair suf (Arabic?) fuːl
water engi sun (Fur?)
nose fir hur
mouth ɲyo mil
ear feɾ kuyi
bird kabal-a
bone kadʒi
sun sey
tree su
kill kuduma
foot rep zaŋ
horn kamin
meat ɲyu neŋ
egg dʒulut
black liwuk
head bo kidʒ-i
night lem
fish gonas
see yakoe

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice. 1907. Document sur les Langues de l'Oubangui-Chari. In Actes du XVIe Congrès International des Orientalistes, Alger, 1905, Part II, 172-330. Paris: Ernest Leroux.
  2. ^ Starostin, George. On Mimi, Journal of Language Relationship, v. 6, 2011, pp. 115-140.