User:Mnamuduri/Moloko language

Moloko is spoken in the region of northern Cameroon. This is where Cameroon is located in Africa.

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Lead

According to local oral history, the Moloko communities are made up of three distinct ethnic groups, rather than a singular one. During the Fulani invasions of the 19th century, these groups sought refuge near the Moloko mountain, where they would eventually come to speak the same language. (page 3)

Phonology

Consonants

There are 32 consonant phonemes in the Moloko language that have been recorded. There are four places of articulation(labial, alveolar, velar/glottal, and labio-velar) and seven manners of articulation (stops, affricates, fricatives, lateral fricatives, lateral approximants, approximant, and flaps).

Vowels

Ten surface phonetic vowels but it could be represented as one (/a/).

There exists one underlying vowel in Moloko, /a/, with four surface realizations. The insertion, or epenthesis, of a schwa /ə/ is required to break up clusters of consonants lacking a vowel. This epenthetic sound accounts for an additional six possible surface realizations.

The status of the epenthetic, as to whether it should be considered its own vowel, is contested. Some analyses consider the epenthetic to be its own unique vowel, thus making Moloko a two-vowel system.

The phonetic realization of both allophones can vary depending on a number of factors: labialization (roundedness), palatalization, or closeness to certain consonants. Each phoneme and its corresponding allophones are listed below.

• /a/
  • [a] (No variation)
  • [ɔ] (Rounded)
  • [ɛ] (Palatalized)  
  • [a] (When adjacent to [j])
  • [a] (When adjacent to [w])
  • [œ] (When adjacent to an inherent labio-velar or /j/)

• /ə/
  • [ə] (No variation)
  • [ʊ] (Rounded)
  • [ɪ] (Palatalized)  
  • [i] (When adjacent to [j])
  • [u] (When adjacent to [w])
  • [ø] (When adjacent to an inherent labio-velar or /j/)

Morphology

Noun Morphology

Moloko nouns are placed at the head of a noun phrase. No case markers are found in Moloko’s morphology. Instead, case markers are indicated through word order and the use of markings in verbs and adpositions (prepositions and postpositions).

Some characteristics of Moloko nouns are:

• Nouns can be pluralized using =ahaj.
• Possessive pronouns may be used.
• Nouns are able to be counted.
• The derivational morpheme ga modifies a noun into an adjective.

Proper nouns in Moloko are commonly found to be compounding, but may also be morphologically simple. Names of people often have something to do with the circumstances or events around the time of their birth. This means a certain person’s name could be a noun, verb, compound, prepositional phrase, or even an entire clause. The names of twins are even determined based on their birth order. (Page 138)

Verb Morphology

Verbs in Moloko are formed through a partially agglutinative process. To form a verb, prefixes and suffixes are attached to a consonantal skeleton. The resulting “verb complex” can be several phonological words in length. Differences in tense are expressed through alteration of the subject prefix.

Verbs have a spatial frame of reference in addition to a temporal frame of reference. Both of these can be defined by the speaker through changing the vowel realization, changing tone, or using verbal extensions.

Further reading

• Boyd, Ginger (2002). Initial analysis of the pitch system of Moloko nouns. WALS Congress, Buea, Cameroon, West African Linguistics Society