Mimi of Decorse

Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes.^[1] Joseph Greenberg (1960) classified it as a Maban language, like the rather remote Maban relative Mimi of Nachtigal. However, George Starostin (2011) rejects this classification, arguing that similarities to Maban are due to contact with locally dominant Maba (the similarities are with that language specifically, not with the entire Maban family), and provisionally regards it as a language isolate, though it is suggestive of Central Sudanic.^[2]

Mimi of Decorse
Mimi-D Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes
Native to	Chad
Era	attested c. 1900
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Central Sudanic? Mimi of Decorse
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	mimi1240

Basic vocabulary

The more stable of Mimi-D and Mimi-N's attested vocabulary is as follows:

gloss	Mimi-D	Mimi-N
two	mel	søn
eye	dyo	kal
fire	sou
stone	muguru
hand	sil	rai
what	ɲeta
die	dafaya
drink	andʒi	ab
dog		ɲuk
moon	aɾ
claw/nail	fer
blood		ari
one	deg	ul-un
tooth	ɲain	ziːk
eat	ɲyam
hair	suf (Arabic?)	fuːl
water	engi	sun (Fur?)
nose	fir	hur
mouth	ɲyo	mil
ear	feɾ	kuyi
bird		kabal-a
bone		kadʒi
sun	sey
tree	su
kill	kuduma
foot	rep	zaŋ
horn	kamin
meat	ɲyu	neŋ
egg	dʒulut
black	liwuk
head	bo	kidʒ-i
night	lem
fish	gonas
see	yakoe

See also

• Mimi of Nachtigal
• Mimi of Decorse word list (Wiktionary)

References

1. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice. 1907. Document sur les Langues de l'Oubangui-Chari. In Actes du XVIe Congrès International des Orientalistes, Alger, 1905, Part II, 172-330. Paris: Ernest Leroux.
2. Starostin, George. On Mimi, Journal of Language Relationship, v. 6, 2011, pp. 115-140.