Garre language


Garre is a Somali language spoken by the Garre who reside in southern Somalia, Ethiopia and northern Kenya. It belongs to the family's Cushitic branch, and had an estimated 50,000 speakers in Somalia in 1992, 57,500 in 2006 and 86,000 in 2020. The total number of speakers in Kenya and Somalia was estimated at 685,600 in 2019. Garre is in the Digil classification of Somali dialects. Garre language is readily intelligible to Digil speakers, as it has some affinity with Af-Maay and Af-Boon.

Classification

Geographic Distribution

For a reconstruction of the historical movements of the Af-Garre which places its original site in the interfluvial area, perhaps near the upper River Juba, the dialect described the one spoken by the Garre of the Basso Shabeelle: the garre of this area would be the only ones to have maintain their language specific to them; as for the Garre of the Mandera region and, further west, up to Moyale, they speak essentially a Borana dialect, most as their bilingual language; and then there is Garre Libin and Garre Kofar
Af-Garre is spoken in the districts of Baydhaba, Dhiinsor, Buurhakaba and Qoryooley is one of the heterogeneous dialect of Somalia; in fact, some Garreh dialects have, for instance, preserved the conjugations with prefixes to date, while others have already given it up. Also, the typical Digil plural morpheme —tə has been replaced in some Garre dialects by the common southern Somali morpheme—yaal.

Phonology

Consonants

Garre has 22 consonant phonemes.

Occlusive consonants

Devoicing and neutralization
At the end of a word, the voiced stops b, d are devoiced: E1: b, d → p, t / __≠
  • → 'shoulder'
  • → 'sickle'
In this position, therefore, the voicing opposition of and is neutralized.
At the end of a word, /g/ becomes a glottal stop:
E2: g → ʔ/__ ≠
  • → 'name'
Often, in the final position of a word followed by a word starting in a consonant, an occlusive is not exploded.
E3: OCCL → OCCL'/__≠ C__≠
This happens in particular if the two words are morphologically united, as in the periphrastic verbal forms:
usu wa arašrə 'he was selling'.
On the other hand, spirantization of voiced stops in intervocalic positions, such as is present for example in Dabarte, does not seem to occur in Garre. - at least of the tuuf dialect variety of Qoryooley -
The spirantization and the passage of b to w are instead quite frequent in the list of words Garres, e.g.
  • hawar = habar 'woman'
  • taweel = tabeel 'wind'
This is a typical feature of the Garre dialect spoken in the Baydhaba area. A similar process occurs in the Maay dialect of the same region.
Despite the existence of the implosive, the postalveolar is never glottalized.
q">Voiceless uvular plosive">q
From our articulated , in general also in intervocalic position; its fricativization in could be a derivation of the Qoryoley dialect; we have been given pairs such as siia ~ siia “dust”.
In a few cases, however, there is constantly realized in intervocalic position, as in hoal "cloud".
As in the other dialects of the region, in final q and realized ʔ:
E4: q → ʔ/__≠
'' duq → __≠ "elderly''
ʔ">Glottal stop">ʔ
In the initial position of speech, in front of vowel and sometimes realized a glottal occlusion, especially at the beginning of a sentence or in the case that the word in question is emphasized: but in most cases this exclusion glottal is not ubidable. However, we believe that ʔ is Phonologically present in all the words K. "beginning in a vowel" - consequently, all the words K. begin phonologically in a consonant. A proof of the presence of initial ʔ is given of the present tense of the verbs of the fourth conjugation by suffixing the present with prefixes of "to be" to the theme:
the theme of the verb will be affixed ahay "I am", in front of which a final nasal theme will be created ɳ, that is, as in front of a consonant with a backward articulation point maʔag="name"
naʔas = "'breast"
towaʔdii = "the jackal"
ʔ also appears at the end of a word:
karaʔ = "Rope used to wear/put the camel's chest"
 suusaʔ "Milk curds of camel"
kubaʔ = "Thunder"
The phonemic of ʔ at the end also confirmed by the treatment of the masculine morpheme k of the article, which falls after ʔas after the other consonants.

Occlusive glottalize

The only glottalized consonant is the palatal implosive. It is not found at the end of a word. Examples in initial position:
  • 'pleasure'
  • 'slash'
Examples in the middle position:
  • 'to crush'
  • 'pot-shards'

    Fricatives

A voiceless velar fricative appears in very few words, some evidently borrowed, e.e. 'doctor', but also, for example, in 'fifty', where one would expect Konton.
The voiceless glottal fricative appears both in the initial position
  • hamal 'leaf'
  • hedid 'root'
  • hebiin 'night'
and medially:
  • deheb 'gold'
  • ahsaan 'please, thank you'
  • bahall 'snake'
In the final position, it seems to freely alternate with :
  • lih ~ liʔ 'six'
  • ɖeh ~ ɖeʔ "Di"
This alternation does not seem to extend to words ending in an etymological . The alternance / h / ~ / ʔ / therefore seems to be an areal phenomenon not specific to a dialect.

Nasal occlusives

General phonetic and phonological processes
The nasals are subject to numerous assimilatory processes and restrictions
of occurrence in certain positions. While the phonemic stats of bilabial nasal 'm' and of a dental 'n' and also, to a limited extent, of a palatal 'p', do not create problems, different is the case of the velar 'ɳ'. First of all, in many contexts The articulation of the nasal is determined by the following sound, to which the nasal is assimilated at the point of articulation. Opposite, respectively, a bilabial, a dental and a velar, a kind of nasal & possible
E5: N → m/__b
.
E6: N → n/__d,t
.
E7: N → ɳ/__g,k,q ʔ
.
A nasal, furthermore, is articulated 4 at the end of a word:≠
E8: N → ɳ/__≠
and passes to "n" in front of the palatal semivocal y:
E9: N → ɳ/__y
These rules apply, as well as within the topic, in the delicate posting of nominal and verbal endings. As for the joint phenomena specifically, In addition to the rules we have given, there are no other restrictions on the occurrence in any position of "m and n" '. The case of p and β is different.
[ɲ]
In the collected material, the palatal nasal never appears in the final word position. Initially it only occurs in ɲuuq “little; small" and in the videophone ɲa" eat! " ; it is natural to connect this form to the singular imperative of "eating" in Oromo: nyaaddhu.
In many cases the presence of "ɲ" in the median position is determined by the application of E7 in the encounter between a theme in the nasal and a suffix; for example, wiin + yahay→ wiiɲahay ''"he is great", lan + yaw ~ laɲaw "oh name!".
However, "ɲ" appears in the lexicon, albeit to a limited extent; for example in:
 maaɲo “tare”
gaɲɲuuf “saliva”
mapaʔ "Milk at the first stage of acidity"
Given the impossibility of deriving these ʔ'' cases from the application of a more general phonemic process, I consider ɲphonemic in K.
[ŋ]
The status of 'ŋ' in Garre is rather complex: it is excluded in the initial word position and appears only in very few words in the middle position, for example in haŋuur "'food" and foŋor "cracking ". In these forms a veil or uvular is completely assimilated to the previous nasal:
compare hunguri dialect fonqor of the dialect Qoryoley. - the latter form derived by dissimilation from + foggorr: Ali ]. But a final nasal is also performed ŋ in the intervocalic position, and precisely when an article or a possessive is affixed to a nasal masculine noun, determinants in which the morpheme of masculine & falls, the union of word "uomo" and of the article "ka" will therefore give "laga".
In K. - at least in T. dialect - a process seems to operate which resolves a nasal + velar connection by assimilating the latter to the nasal, which becomes velarized in ŋ; this process is lexically determined, given that with other determinants the link ŋk is preserved ; but it could also depend on the rhythm of the sentence.
We will have lost:
Morphemic representation | phonological | phonetics
/ian/ + /ka/ lanka
'
Of the phonetic representations, the earliest & data from the application of E7, the second from the application of the process of resolution of the link nk.
On the contrary, with female names we will have:
Morphemic representation | phonological | phonetics
/islaan / + / ta / islaanta
'

The first phonetic representation is given by the application of E6, the second from the assimilation of the dental to the nasal, Which can be subsequently determined.
Consequently, n and ŋ often distinguish, in an intervocalic position, the gender of the noun. On the basis of its possibility of occurrence in the intervocalic position - where the other nasals are naturally also allowed - we recognize the phonemic status of ŋ. In fact, phonological representations such as lanka and islaanta would be not only too distant from the phonetic forms laŋa and islaana, but the latter. they are not even linked to their presumed phonological representations by general processes,
Only in the median phonetic position will ŋ be transcribed in the final - given its complete predictability - we will transcribe ''n.''