| Mpadə | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Cameroon,Chad |
| Region | Far North Province, Cameroon; west Chad |
Native speakers | 16,000 in Cameroon (2004)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mpi |
| Glottolog | mpad1242 Mpadengal1301 Ngala |
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Mpadə is anAfro-Asiatic language spoken in northernCameroon and southwesternChad. Dialects are Bodo, Biamo, Digam, Mpade (Makari), Shoe (Shewe), and Woulki.[2]
The language is sometimes known as Makari, after one of the towns where it is spoken. Ngala further west (as described by Barth) once spoke a dialect similar to Makari, but it wasmoribund by the 1920s, the people having shifted to Kanuri.
In Cameroon, Mpade is spoken throughout the northern end of theLogone-et-Chari department (Far North Region), adjacent toLake Chad and centered onMakari (the northern part of Makari arrondissement as well as inFotokol andHilé Alifa arrondissements, and the northern part ofGoulfey arrondissement). It is also spoken in Chad and Nigeria, it has a total population of 12,000 speakers (SIL 2000).[3]
Mpade has the following consonants.[4]
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialized | ||||||
| Stops and affricates | Voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | kʷ | |
| Voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ɡʷ | ||
| Ejective | tsʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | kʷʼ | |||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||||
| Prenasalized | mb | nd | ŋɡ | ||||
| Fricatives | Voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | ||
| Voiced | z | ||||||
| Nasals | m | n | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Semivowels | j | w | |||||
Mpade has the following vowels.[4]
| front | back unrounded | back rounded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | u |
| Non-High | e | a | o |