Mpade language

Mpadə is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and southwestern Chad. Dialects are Bodo, Digam, Mpade (Makari), Shoe (Shewe), and Woulki.[2]

Mpadə
Native to	Cameroon, Chad
Region	Far North Province, Cameroon; west Chad
Native speakers	16,000 in Cameroon (2004)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic Biu–Mandara Kotoko (B.1) North Mpadə
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mpi
Glottolog	mpad1242  Mpade ngal1301  Ngala

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 was moribund by the 1920s, the people having shifted to Kanuri.

Phonology

Consonants

Mpade has the following consonants.[3]

		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

Vowels

Mpade has the following vowels.[3]

	front	back unrounded	back rounded
High	i	ɨ	u
Non-High	e	a	o

Notes

1. Mpadə at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Frawley, William J., ed. (2003). "Mpade". International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. p. 238.
3. Allison 2006.

References

• Allison, Sean. 2006. Alphabet et orthographe de Kotoko de Makary (mpadɨ) (Makary Kotoko Orthography Statement) SIL manuscript, 31 pp. Available on-line
• Allison, Sean. 2020. A Grammar of Makary Kotoko. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004422513.