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|
| Siamou | |
|---|---|
| Sɛmɛ | |
| Native to | Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali |
| Ethnicity | Seme |
Native speakers | (40,000 cited ca. 1999)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sif |
| Glottolog | siam1242 |
Siamou, also known as Seme (Sɛmɛ), is a language spoken mainly in Burkina Faso, but also in Ivory Coast and Mali,. It is often classified as one of the Kru languages or unclassified within the proposed Niger–Congo languages, although it could likely be a language isolate.
The speakers call themselves Seme. The Dioula language exonym is Siamou.[2]
Classification
editSiamou is traditionally classed as Kru. However, according to Roger Blench (2013) and Pierre Vogler (2015), the language bears little resemblance to Kru.[3]: 50 [2] Güldemann (2018) also leaves out Siamou as unrelated to Niger-Congo and considers it a language isolate.[4] Glottolog also considers it a language isolate on that basis.
Geographical distribution
editIn 1999, it was spoken by 20,000 people in western Burkina Faso and another 20,000 in the Ivory Coast and Mali.[1] In Burkina Faso, it is mainly spoken in the province of Kénédougou, around the provincial capital Orodara and the surrounding villages of Bandougou, Didéri, Diéri, Diéridéni, Diossogou, Kotoudéni, Lidara, and Tin.[2] Siamou has one major dialect, Bandougou. In addition, there are minor dialectal differences among the Siamou spoken in Orodara and in surrounding villages. It is also spoken in Toussiana Department of Burkina Faso.
Phonology
editConsonants
edit| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio- velar |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | (p) | t | k | k͡p | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɡʲ | (ɡ) | ɡ͡b | ||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | (h) | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ͡m | |||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
- Consonants /p, ɡ, h/ are rare and can only occur in the onset of a sylable.
- /ʃ/ is claimed to be an allophone of /s/ in complementary distribution by Traoré (1984), with [ʃ] before high vowels and [s] elsewhere,[5] but there are some near-minimal pairs between the two, such as shaŋn /ʃãᵑ/ 'measure' and saŋ /sã/ 'pound'.
Vowels
edit| Oral | Nasal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| High | i | u | ĩ | |
| High-mid | e | o | ||
| Low-mid | ɛ | ɔ | ɛ̃ | ɔ̃ |
| Low | a | ã | ||
- Vowels /i, u/ are realized as -ATR [ɪ, ʊ] when in closed syllables.
- Vowels in unstressed syllables can occur as [ə], according to Traoré (1984).[5][6]
Phonotactics
editAll consonants can occur in the onset position, and all consonants except /r/ are found word-initially except in loanwords (e.g. radio 'radio').[6]
Grammar
editSiamou word order is SOV, like the Senufo languages, but unlike the SVO Central Gur languages.[4]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ a b Siamou at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ a b c d Vogler, Pierre. 2015. Le sèmè/siamou n’est pas une langue kru.
- ^ Blench, Roger (2013-01-01). "Why is Africa so linguistically undiverse? Exploring substrates and isolates". MOTHER TONGUE, Journal of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory • Issue XVIII pp. 43-68. • 50th Anniversary of J.H. Greenberg’s The Languages of Africa (1963).
- ^ a b Güldemann, Tom (2018). "Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa". In Güldemann, Tom (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. The World of Linguistics series. Vol. 11. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 58–444. doi:10.1515/9783110421668-002. ISBN 978-3-11-042606-9. S2CID 133888593.
- ^ a b Traoré, Kotalama (1984). Éléments de phonologie dimensionnelle du Seme (masters thesis). Université de Ouagadougou.
- ^ a b Toews, Carmela Irene Penner (2015). Topics in Siamou tense and aspect (PhD thesis). University of British Columbia. doi:10.14288/1.0166224.
Further reading
edit- Prost, André. 1964. Contribution à l’étude des langues voltaiques. Dakar: IFAN.
- Traoré, Kotalama. 1985. Recherche sur la structure de l’enonce Seme. Nice: Université de Nice MA thesis.
- Traoré, Kalifa & Nadine Bednarz. 2008. Mathématiques construites en contexte: une analyse du système de numération oral utilisé par les Siamous au Burkina Faso. Nordic Journal of African Studies 17(3). 175–197.
- Toews, Carmela I. P. 2010. Siamou future expressions. In Melinda Heijl (ed.), Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistics Association 2010, 1‒12. Montréal: Concordia University
