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Saharan language of eastern Niger and northern Chad From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daza (also known as Dazaga) is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Daza people (a sub-group of the Toubou people) inhabiting northern Chad and eastern Niger.[1] The Daza are also known as the Gouran (Gorane) in Chad.[1] Dazaga is spoken by around 700,000 people, primarily in the Djurab Desert region and the Borkou region, locally called Haya or Faya-Largeau northern-central Chad, the capital of the Dazaga people. Dazaga is spoken in the Tibesti Mountains of Chad (606,000 speakers), in eastern Niger near N'guigmi and to the north (93,200 speakers).[1] It is also spoken to a smaller extent in Libya and in Sudan, where there is a community of 3,000 speakers in the city of Omdurman.[citation needed] There's also a small diaspora community working in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The two primary dialects of the Dazaga language are Daza and Kara, but there are several other mutually intelligible dialects, including Kaga, Kanobo, Taruge and Azza. It is closely related to the Tedaga language, spoken by the Teda, the other out of the two Toubou people groups, who reside primarily in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad and in southern Libya near the city of Sabha.
Dazaga is a Nilo-Saharan language and a member of the Western Saharan branch of the Saharan subgroup which also contains the Kanuri language, Kanembu language and Tebu languages.[2] Tebu is further divided into Tedaga and Dazaga. The Eastern Saharan branch includes the Zaghawa language and Berti language.[3]
The dialects spoken in Chad and Niger have some French influence whereas the dialects spoken in Libya and Sudan have more of an Arabic influence. The Dazaga language was not traditionally a written language but in recent years the SIL had developed an orthography. The majority of Dazaga speakers are bilingual or multilingual in their native tongue along with either Arabic, French, Zaghawa, Hausa, Zarma, Kanuri or Tuareg. There are thus many borrowings from other languages such as Arabic, Hausa or French. For example, the word for "thank you" is borrowed from Arabic shokran and incorporated into the language by usually being followed by the suffix -num marking the second person.
The following tables contain words from the Daza dialect spoken in Omdurman, Sudan. This romanisation is not standard.
| English | Dazaga | English | Dazaga |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | Tron | Eleven | Murdai sa Tron |
| Two | Jow | Twelve | Murdai sa Jow |
| Three | Aguzo | Thirteen | Murdai sa Aguzo |
| Four | Twzo | Fourteen | Murdai sa Twzo |
| Five | Foo | Fifteen | Murdai sa Foo |
| Six | Disi | Sixteen | Murdai sa Disi |
| Seven | Troso | Seventeen | Murdai sa Troso |
| Eight | Woso | Eighteen | Murdai sa Woso |
| Nine | Yisi | Nineteen | Murdai sa Yisi |
| Ten | Murdum | Twenty | Digiram |
| Thirty | Murtta Aguzo | Fifty | Murtta Foo |
| Forty | Murtta Twzo | Hundred | Kidri |
| English | Dazaga | English | Dazaga | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| man | Agni | Good Morning | Wasa Nisira | |
| woman | Ari | Good Night | Kalar Sizoo | |
| family | Ama tanga | Thank you | alay barkantchân | |
| brother | Dagi | My name is... | Tan Sortanjo | |
| sister | Duroo | What is your name? | Sornuma Jaa? or sornuma eni' | |
| papa | Abaa | How are you? | neré wasi? | |
| mama | Aya | I am well | Kala Layy or Tan Wasu or wasa a' | |
| friend | Lao | Please | toussowna | |
| world | Dina | Country | Ni | |
| dead | Noso | Religion | Din | |
| people | Amma | Better | Bouré | |
| East | Mah | West | Jeh | |
| North | Yallh | South | Onoum |
The Azza are a blacksmith class who speak their own dialect of the language, referred to as Azzanga, which is considered by Dagaza speakers to be lower in status then the standard dialect.[4]
The phonology of Daza is as follows:[5]
The Daza language exhibits a subject-object-verb word order, as can be seen in the following example[6]:
à̰ʊ̰́
à̰ʊ̰́
man
áɪ̀
áɪ̀
this
dɪ́lɪ̀mɪ̀
dɪ́lɪ̀m=ɪ̀
leprosy=ERG
[káá]
kɛ́ɛ́-a
hand-PL
[sʊ́nà]
sʊ́n-à
3S.POSS-PL
ɡɔ́ɾʊ̀
Ø-j-kɔ́ɾ
3.OBJ-3-cut
‘This man, leprosy cut his hands.’
There are no grammatical genders in Dagaza, and biological gender is indicated with separate lexical items for male and female.[7]
Adding the adjectivalizer suffix -ɾ́ɛ at the end of a word forms adjectives from nouns, verbs, and occasionally even other adjectives.[8]
Verbs are inflected for both subject and object arguments. This inflection is sensitive to grammatical person, but not number, gender, or other features of the subject and object.[6]
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