Chakali language

Chakali
Chakali
Region	Ghana
Native speakers	6,000 (2003)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Gur Southern Gurunsi Western Chakali; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cli
Glottolog	chak1271
ELP	Chakali

Chakali is a Gur language of Ghana, spoken in several villages in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region. The majority of Chakali are bilingual in Wali.^[2]

Phonology[]

Chakali phonology is typical of Gur languages, with tone, vowel harmony, and labial–velar consonant

Vowels[]

Chakali contrasts long and short vowels, as well as advanced and retracted tongue root vowels, which play a role in vowel harmony. While typically treated as a "neutral" vowel for tongue root harmony, /a/ might surface as [ɑ] following -ATR vowels, but this is not phonemic. Additionally, [ə] arises during epenthesis or vowel reduction.

	Front		Back
	Unrounded		Rounded
	−ATR	+ATR	−ATR	+ATR
Close	ɪ	i	ʊ	u
Mid	ɛ	e	ɔ	o
Open	a

All phonemic vowels can also appear nasalized, which is often due to the influence of a neighboring nasal consonant or glottal fricative. Nasal vowels do occur phonemically in certain words,^[2] as demonstrated by near-minimal or minimal pairs:

/zʊ̀ʊ̀/ 'enter', /zʊ̃̀ʊ̃̀/ 'laziness'
/fáà/ 'ancient', /fã̀ã̀/ 'do by force'
/tùù/ 'go down', /tṹṹ/ 'honey'

Consonants[]

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar		Glottal
	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar/ Palatal	plain	labial	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	ŋ͡m
Stop	p b	t d	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	k ɡ	k͡p ɡ͡b	ʔ
Fricative	f v	s z				h
Approximant		l	j		w
Rhotic		r~ɾ

/t/ surfaces as [r] in word-final or word-medial onset position.^[2]
/k/ and /g/ usually surface as [ɣ] between vowels.^[2]
All nasals are realized as [ŋ] in word-final position.^[2]

Grammar[]

Chakali is a subject–verb–object language.

References[]

^ Chakali at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Brindle, Jonathan A. (2017). A Dictionary and Grammatical Outline of Chakali. African Language Grammars and Dictionaries 2. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.344813. ISBN 978-3-944675-91-6.

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[e18-1] Chakali at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[brindle-2] Brindle, Jonathan A. (2017). A Dictionary and Grammatical Outline of Chakali. African Language Grammars and Dictionaries 2. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.344813. ISBN 978-3-944675-91-6.

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