Meʼen language

Meʼen (also Mekan, Mieʼen, Mieken, Meqan, Men) is a Nilo-Saharan language (Eastern Sudanic, Surmic, Southeast Surmic^[2]) spoken in Ethiopia by the Meʼen people. In recent years, it has been written with the Geʽez alphabet, but in 2007 a decision was made to use the Latin alphabet. Dialects include Bodi (Podi) and Tishena (Teshina, Teshenna).

Meʼen
Mɛʼɛn
Native to	Ethiopia
Region	Eastern Africa
Ethnicity	Me'en
Native speakers	150,000 (2007 census)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic? Southern Eastern Surmic Meʼen
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mym
Glottolog	meen1242
ELP	Bodi

Meʼen and Kwegu are unique among Surmic languages in that they have ejective consonants.

Reliable descriptions of some parts of the language have been produced by Hans-Georg Will, often contradicting Carlo Conti Rossini's work, the editing of the extensive language notes of a non-linguist.

Phonology

Consonants^[3]

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ
	ejective		tʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative	voiceless	(f)	s	ʃ		h
	voiced		z
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic			ɾ
Glide		w	l	j

/p/ can be realized as a fricative [f] in initial and medial positions.

Vowels^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

/i, u/ can have lax variants as [ɪ, ʊ].

Notes

1. Ethiopia 2007 Census Archived 2010-11-14 at the Wayback Machine
2. Peter Unseth. 1988. The Validity and Unity of the Southeast Surma Language Grouping. Northeast African Studies 10.2/3:151-163
3. Will, Hans-Georg (1993) Meʼen phonology

References

• Conti Rossini, Carlo. (1913). "I Mekan o Suro nell'Etiopia meridionale e il loro linguaggio." Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei XXII (7-10): 397–463.
• Diehl, Achim and Hans-Georg Will. (2007). "Meˀen language." In Siegbert Uhlig (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica 3, 907–909. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Eba Teresa Garoma and Amanuel Raga Yadate. 2015. Sketch [of] Morphology and Syntax of Meʼenit. International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities Vol.3, Issue 7, pp. 30–50.
• Will, Hans-Georg. 1989. "Sketch of Meʼen grammar." In M. Lionel Bender (ed.), Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics 129–50. Nilo-Saharan, 3. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
• Will, Hans-Georg. 1998. "The Meʼen verb system: Does Meʼen have tenses?." In Gerrit J. Dimmendaal and Marco Last (eds.), Surmic languages and cultures, 437–58. Nilo-Saharan, 13. Cologne: R. Köppe

External links

• Meʼen basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• World Atlas of Language Structures information on Meʼen