Ngambay language


Ngambay is one of the major languages spoken by Sara people in southwestern Chad, northeastern Cameroon and eastern Nigeria, with about a million native speakers. Ngambay is the most widely spoken of the Sara languages, and is used as a trade language between speakers of other dialects. It is spoken by the Sara Gambai people.
Ngambay has SVO [word order|Subject–Verb–Object word order]. Suffixes indicate case. There is no tense; aspect is indicated by a perfective–imperfective distinction. Modifiers follow nouns. The numeral system is decimal, but eight and nine are expressed as 10-minus-two and 10-minus-one. It is a tone language with three tones: high, mid, and low. There are loan words from both Arabic and French.

Phonology

Vowels/Nasal Vowels

Tones &; Nasalization

The three tones are high /á/, mid /ā/ and low /à/. Vowels can also be nasalised: /ã/.