Jeddu [JDU]
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Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 18 August 2016
Language type
A posteriori
Species
Human/humanoid
About Jeddu
A Bantu language spoken in far eastern Benishangul-Gumuz region, northwestern Ethiopia, by the Beddu people. The nearest Bantu languages are some 1000 km / 650 mi away in Uganda and Kenya.
Difficult to classify within Bantu due to extreme phonological, grammatical, and lexical restructuring under influence of Amharic (South Semitic), Awngi and Xamtanga (Agaw Cushitic), Gumuz (Komuz), and to a lesser extent Borna (North Omotic), Oromo (Lowland East Cushitic), and Berta (Berta).
Most likely a Northeastern Bantu language with a close connection to Great Lakes Bantu (Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Luganda, and more), judging from its pattern of noun classes and historical participation in Dahl's Law (voiced stop dissimilation), as well as shared lexical items and grammar.
Jeddu is written in three orthographies: a technical linguistic transcription system that is morphophonemic, a nontechnical romanization, and most excitingly, a variant of the Ge'ez syllabary, also used to write Amharic, Tigrinya, and others. I will be using the latter two on CWS, with IPA where needed, even though neither reflect tone or consonant gemination.
Unfortunately, literacy rates are low among the Beddu people due to lack of access to education, but because the Jeddu language is similar to Amharic phonetically, it is very straightforward to transfer knowledge of the Ge'ez script from one to the other, with the result that since its introduction, literacy rates have been rising.
Jeddu's noun class system and highly synthetic verbal morphology have become extremely fusional and complex due to the many phonological changes it has undergone. Stay tuned.
Difficult to classify within Bantu due to extreme phonological, grammatical, and lexical restructuring under influence of Amharic (South Semitic), Awngi and Xamtanga (Agaw Cushitic), Gumuz (Komuz), and to a lesser extent Borna (North Omotic), Oromo (Lowland East Cushitic), and Berta (Berta).
Most likely a Northeastern Bantu language with a close connection to Great Lakes Bantu (Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Luganda, and more), judging from its pattern of noun classes and historical participation in Dahl's Law (voiced stop dissimilation), as well as shared lexical items and grammar.
Jeddu is written in three orthographies: a technical linguistic transcription system that is morphophonemic, a nontechnical romanization, and most excitingly, a variant of the Ge'ez syllabary, also used to write Amharic, Tigrinya, and others. I will be using the latter two on CWS, with IPA where needed, even though neither reflect tone or consonant gemination.
Unfortunately, literacy rates are low among the Beddu people due to lack of access to education, but because the Jeddu language is similar to Amharic phonetically, it is very straightforward to transfer knowledge of the Ge'ez script from one to the other, with the result that since its introduction, literacy rates have been rising.
Jeddu's noun class system and highly synthetic verbal morphology have become extremely fusional and complex due to the many phonological changes it has undergone. Stay tuned.
Sample of Jeddu[view] kätäma gërä ni mëbuzërä ko ǧëdu? / sälam käfëḳu ke käberä?
"How does one say 'city' in your language?" / "What is the word for 'hello'?" / [view all texts]
"How does one say 'city' in your language?" / "What is the word for 'hello'?" / [view all texts]
Language family relationships
[view] About BantuThe Bantu languages are a large branch of the Niger-Congo languages, which began to expand across most of southern and eastern Africa at approximately 400 AD due to the development of iron metallurgy among the West African Proto-Bantu speakers. There...
Phonology
Consonants | Bilabial | Labio- dental | Dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Palatal | Labio- velar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
Nasal | m [m̥]1 | n [n̥]2 | ɲ | |||||||||||||||
Plosive | p | b | t̪ t̪ʼ | d̪ | k kʼ (kʼʷ) (kʷ) | g (gʷ) | ||||||||||||
Fricative | f | (v) | s (sʼ) | z | ʃ | [ʒ]3 | [ç]4 | (h) | ||||||||||
Affricate | t͡ʃ t͡ʃʼ | d͡ʒ | ||||||||||||||||
Lateral approximant | (l) [l̥]5 | |||||||||||||||||
Approximant | j | w [w̥]6 | ||||||||||||||||
Trill | [r]7 [r̥]8 | |||||||||||||||||
Flap | ɾ [ɾ̥]9 |
- word-final, allophone of /m̥/
- word-final, allophone of /n̥/
- free variation, allophone of /d͡ʒ/
- word-final, allophone of /j/
- word-final, allophone of /l̥/
- word-final, allophone of /w/
- geminate, allophone of /ɾ/
- geminate, word-final, allophone of /ɾ/
- word-final, allophone of /ɾ̥/
Vowels | Front | Near- front | Central | Back | ||||
Close | i | ɨ | u | |||||
Near-close | [ɪ]1 | [ʊ̈]2 | ||||||
Close-mid | e | [ɘ]3 | o | |||||
Mid | ə | |||||||
Open-mid | [ɜ]4 | [ʌ]5 | ||||||
Near-open | [ɐ]6 | |||||||
Open | a |
- adjacent to palatal, allophone of /ɨ/
- adjacent to /w/, allophone of /ɨ/
- free variation, allophone of /ɨ/
- free variation, allophone of /ə/
- adjacent to /w/, allophone of /ə/
- adjacent to palatal, allophone of /ə/
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Jeddu. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
JedduOrthography [edit] | ||||||||
Aa/a/ | Ää/ə/, [ʌ]1, [ɜ]2, [ɐ]3 | Bb/b/ | Čč/t͡ʃ/ | Ċċ/t͡ʃʼ/ | Dd/d̪/ | Ee/e/ | Ëë/ɨ/, [ɪ]4, [ɘ]5, [ʊ̈]6 | Ff/f/ |
Gg/g/ | Ǧǧ/d͡ʒ/, [ʒ]7 | GW gw/gʷ/8 | Hh/h/9 | Ii/i/ | Ḳḳ/kʼ/ | Kk/k/ | ḲW ḳw/kʼʷ/10 | KW kw/kʷ/11 |
Ll/l/12, [l̥]13 | Mm/m/, [m̥]14 | Nn/n/, [n̥]15 | Ňň/ɲ/ | Oo/o/ | Pp/p/ | Rr/ɾ/, [ɾ̥]16, [r]17, [r̥]18 | Ṣṣ/sʼ/19 | Ss/s/ |
Šš/ʃ/ | Ṭṭ/t̪ʼ/ | Tt/t̪/ | Uu/u/ | Vv/v/20 | Ww/w/, [w̥]21 | Yy/j/, [ç]22 | Zz/z/ | |
✖ Unknown alphabetical order [change] |
- adjacent to /w/
- free variation
- adjacent to palatal
- adjacent to palatal
- free variation
- adjacent to /w/
- free variation
- loan words only
- loan words only
- loan words only
- loan words only
- loan words only
- word-final
- word-final
- word-final
- word-final
- geminate
- geminate, word-final
- loan words only
- loan words only
- word-final
- word-final
Latest 8 related articles listed below.
LotM - Nov 16: Jeddu
Merryvember and congratulations to dendana and their Jeddu: ...
31-Oct-16 09:00Jeddu grammar sketch
quick summary
03-Oct-16 02:49Sound changes from Proto-Bantu
much change happened
27-Sep-16 06:13Historical grammar of the Jeddu language
grammar from a diachronic perspective
27-Sep-16 06:11Jeddu Dictionary Notes
what those cryptic letters mean
07-Sep-16 21:40