| Daza | |
|---|---|
| Dazaga | |
| Native to | Chad andNiger[1] |
| Region | BET Region,Bahr el Gazel Region,Batha,Borkou,Hadjer-Lamis,Kanem,Lac,Wadi-Fira,Diffa,Zinder[1] |
| Ethnicity | Toubou |
Native speakers | 700,000 (2019–2021)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dzg |
| Glottolog | daza1242 |
| Linguasphere | 02-BAA-ab |
 | |
Daza (also known asDazaga) is aNilo-Saharan language spoken by the Daza people (a sub-group of theToubou people inhabiting northernChad and easternNiger).[1] The Daza are also known as theGouran (Gorane) in Chad.[1] Dazaga is spoken by around 700,000 people, primarily in theDjurab Desert region and theBorkou region, locally called Haya orFaya-Largeau northern-central Chad, in Kanem there is a lot of Daza around 300,000, the capital of the Dazaga people. Dazaga is spoken in theTibesti Mountains ofChad (606,000 speakers), in easternNiger nearN'guigmi and to the north (93,200 speakers).[1] It is also spoken to a smaller extent inLibya and inSudan, where there is a community of 3,000 speakers in the city ofOmdurman.[citation needed] There's also a small diaspora community working inJeddah,Saudi Arabia.
The two primary dialects of the Dazaga language are Daza and Kara, but there are several other mutually intelligible dialects, including Kaga, Kanobo, Taruge and Azza. It is closely related to theTedaga language, spoken by theTeda, the other out of the twoToubou people groups, who reside primarily in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad and in southern Libya near the city ofSabha.
Dazaga is a Nilo-Saharan language and a member of the Western Saharan branch of theSaharan subgroup which also contains theKanuri language,Kanembu language andTebu languages.[2] Tebu is further divided into Tedaga and Dazaga. The Eastern Saharan branch includes theZaghawa language andBerti language.[3]
The dialects spoken in Chad and Niger have someFrench influence whereas the dialects spoken in Libya and Sudan have more of anArabic influence. The Dazaga language was not traditionally a written language but in recent years theSIL had developed an orthography. The majority of Dazaga speakers arebilingual or multilingual in their native tongue along with either Arabic, French, Zaghawa,Hausa,Zarma, Kanuri orTuareg. There are thus many borrowings from other languages such as Arabic, Hausa or French. For example, the word for "thank you" is borrowed from Arabicshokran and incorporated into the language by usually being followed by the suffix-num marking the second person.
The following tables contain words from the Daza dialect spoken in Omdurman, Sudan. Thisromanisation is not standard.
| English | Dazaga | English | Dazaga |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | Tron | Eleven | Murdai sa Tron |
| Two | Jow | Twelve | Murdai sa Jow |
| Three | Aguzo | Thirteen | Murdai sa Aguzo |
| Four | Twzo | Fourteen | Murdai sa Twzo |
| Five | Foo | Fifteen | Murdai sa Foo |
| Six | Disi | Sixteen | Murdai sa Disi |
| Seven | Troso | Seventeen | Murdai sa Troso |
| Eight | Woso | Eighteen | Murdai sa Woso |
| Nine | Yisi | Nineteen | Murdai sa Yisi |
| Ten | Murdum | Twenty | Digiram |
| Thirty | Murtta Aguzo | Fifty | Murtta Foo |
| Forty | Murtta Twzo | Hundred | Kidri |
| English | Dazaga | English | Dazaga | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| man | Agni | Good Morning | Wasa Nisira | |
| woman | Ari | Good Night | Kalar Sizoo | |
| family | Ama tanga | Thank you | alay barkantchân | |
| brother | Dagi | My name is... | Tan Sortanjo | |
| sister | Duroo | What is your name? | Sornuma Jaa? or sornuma eni' | |
| papa | Abaa | How are you? | neré wasi? | |
| mama | Aya | I am well | Kala Layy or Tan Wasu or wasa a' | |
| friend | Lao | Please | toussowna | |
| world | Dina | Country | Ni | |
| dead | Noso | Religion | Din | |
| people | Amma | Better | Bouré | |
| East | Mah | West | Jeh | |
| North | Yallh | South | Onoum |
The Azza are a blacksmith class who speak their own dialect of the language, referred to as Azzanga, which is considered by Dagaza speakers to be lower in status then the standard dialect.[4]
The phonology of Daza is as follows:[4]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | b | td | tʃdʒ | kɡ | |
| Fricative | f | sz | (ʃ) | h | |
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Flap | ɾ | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Approximant | w | j |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| ɪ | ʊ | ||
| Mid | e | o | |
| ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Open | a |
Dagaza showcases 4 distinct tones, high, low, rising, and falling, although the occurrence of rising and falling tones is limited to just a few specific contexts and no word exists which only contains low tones. For this reason, there is debate as to whether these truly represent 4 distinct tonemes or if instead Dagaza has a pitch accent system.[4]
The Daza language exhibits a subject-object-verb word order, as can be seen in the following example:[4]
There are nogrammatical genders in Dagaza, and biological gender is indicated with separate lexical items for male and female.[4]
Adding the adjectivalizer suffix -ɾ́ɛ at the end of a word forms adjectives from nouns, verbs, and occasionally even other adjectives.[4]
Verbs are inflected for both subject and object arguments. This inflection is sensitive togrammatical person, but not number, gender, or other features of the subject and object.[4]
To signify presentationalpossession (exemplified by the have verb in English, e.g. "I have a computer"), Dazaga utilizes a transitive "have-verb" strategy where the possessor is the subject and the possessum is the object, similar to how this construction is made in English. The following example shows presentational possession in Dazaga:[4]
jɛ́ɡɛ̀
jɛ́ɡɛ̀
house
jɛ́ɡɛ̀ ɡòdúù déì
jɛ́ɡɛ̀ ɡòdú=ù Ø-j-téi
house clay=GEN.SG 3.OBJ-3-have
'He has a house of clay.’
Dazaga uses clitic case markers for four cases:ergative,accusative,genitive, anddative. The marking of case is sensitive to anAnimacy Hierarchy: the accusative enclitic /=ɡà/ encodes the object of a transitive verb when it is a high animacy referent (personal pronouns). For all other object referents, this clitic is optional.[4]
Interrogatives are indicated in two ways; yes/no questions are formed by attaching the clitic -ra to the end of the verb, information questions are indicated by the presence by equivalents to wh- question words in English at the end of the phrase.[4]
| National | |
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| Other | |
