Majang language
| Majang | |
|---|---|
| Ato Majanger-Onk | |
| Native to | Ethiopia |
| Region | Godere, Gambela Region |
| Ethnicity | Majang people |
|
Native speakers
|
33,000 (2007 census) |
|
Nilo-Saharan?
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | maja1242 |
The Majang language is spoken by the Majangir people of Ethiopia. Although it is a member of the Surmic cluster, this language is the most isolated one in that cluster (Fleming 1983). A language survey has shown that dialect variation from north to south is minor and does not seriously impede communication. The 2007 Ethiopian Census lists 6,433 speakers for Majang (Messengo), but also reports that the ethnic group consists of 32,822 individuals (Messengo and Mejengir). According to the census, almost no speakers can be found in Mezhenger Zone of Gambela Region; a total of eleven speakers are listed for the zone, but almost 10,000 ethnic Mejenger or Messengo people.
Vowel length is distinctive in Majang, so all vowels come in pairs of long and short, such as goopan 'punishment' and gopan 'road'. The vowel inventory is taken out of Joswig (2012) and Getachew (2014, p. 65). Unseth (2007) posed a 9-vowel system with a row of -ATR closed vowels ɪ and ʊ. Moges claims a tenth vowel ɐ, whereas Bender (1983) was only ready to confirm six vowels. All authors agree that there is no ATR vowel harmony in the language.
Bender also claims that the glottal stop [ʔ] needs to be treated as a phoneme of Majang though Unseth refutes this. Majang has two implosives, bilabial and coronal, which Moges Yigezu has studied acoustically and distributionally.
Tones distinguish meaning in Majang, on both the word level and the grammatical level: táŋ (higher tone) 'cow', tàŋ (lower tone) 'abscess'. The tonal inventory consists of two tone levels, with falling and rising contour tones possible at the end of phonological words, plus automatic and non-automatic downstep.
The language has markers to indicate three different past tenses (close, mid, far past) and two future tenses (near and farther).
The language has a wide variety of suffixes, but almost no prefixes. Though its use is limited to a handful of roots, there are a few words that preserve vestiges of the archaic causative prefix i-, a prefix found in other Surmic languages and also Nilotic.
The counting system is a modified vigesimal system, based on 5, 10, and 20. "Twenty" is 'one complete person' (all fingers and toes), so 40 is 'two complete people', 100 is 'five complete people'. However, today, under the influence of schools and increased bilingualism, people generally use the Amharic or Oromo words for 100.
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