Musey language

Musey is a Chadic language of Chad and Cameroon. There is a degree of mutual intelligibility with Masana. Although Musey and Masa are mutually unintelligible, many Musey speakers also speak Masa.^[2]

Musey
Native to	Chad, Cameroon
Native speakers	430,000 (2005–2019)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic Masa North Musey–Azumeina Musey
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mse
Glottolog	muse1242

Distribution

Musey is spoken east of Guéré, in the southern part of Mayo-Danay commune in Danay department, Far North Region, by 20,000 speakers in Cameroon. It is also spoken in Chad.^[2]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		tʃ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		dʒ	ɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
	prenasalized	mb	nd		nd͡ʒ	ŋɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ɬ			h
	voiced	v	z	ɮ			ɦ
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Flap			ɾ
Approximant		w		l	j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Lax allophones of /i u e o/ occur as [ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ].^[3][4]

References

1. Musey at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Binam Bikoi, Charles, ed. (2012). Atlas linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) [Linguistic Atlas of Cameroon]. Atlas linguistique de l'Afrique centrale (ALAC) (in French). Vol. 1: Inventaire des langues. Yaoundé: CERDOTOLA. ISBN 9789956796069.
3. Duncanson, Robert (1972). Interpreting tone in the Musey language. University of North Dakota.
4. Shryock, Aaron M. (1992). Consonants and tone in Musey. UCLA.

External links

• Musey language materials from UCLA