Mursi language

Mursi (also Dama, Merdu, Meritu, Murzi, Murzu) is a Southeast Surmic language spoken by the Mursi people who live in the South Omo Zone on the eastern side of the lower Omo valley in southwest Ethiopia.[2] The language is similar to Suri, another Southeast Surmic language spoken to the west of the Mursi language area.[3] It is spoken by approximately 7,400 people.[1]: 91 

Mursi
Native toEthiopia
RegionCentral Omo
EthnicityMursi
Native speakers
7,400 (2007 census)[1]: 91 
Nilo-Saharan?
Ethiopic
Language codes
ISO 639-3muz
Glottologmurs1242
ELPMursi

Classification

Mursi is classified as belonging to the Southeast Surmic languages, to which the following other languages also belong: Suri, Me'en and Kwegu.[4][5] As such, Mursi is also part of the superordinate Eastern Sudanic family of the Nilo-Saharan languages.

Phonology

Phoneme inventory

The vowel and consonant inventory of Mursi is similar to those of other Southeast Surmic languages, except for the lack of ejectives, the labial fricative /f/ and the voiceless stop /p/.[6]

Consonants of Mursi[7][8]
Labial Alveolar Postalveolar/
Palatal		 Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless t c ⟨č⟩ k (ʔ)
voiced b d ɟ ⟨dʒ⟩ ɡ
Implosive ɓ ɗ
Fricative voiceless s ʃ h
voiced z
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Liquids r, l
Approximant j w
  • Except for the hesitant inclusion of the glottal stop /ʔ/ by Firew, both Mütze and Firew agree on the consonant inventory. The layout mostly follows Mütze. The characters in angled brackets are the ones used by Firew, where they differ from Mütze.
  • Mütze rejects the phonemic status of the glottal stop [ʔ], claiming that it is phonetically inserted to break up vowel sequences.[9] Firew discusses this and leaves the question undecided, but includes the sound in the phoneme chart.[10]
  • Firew classifies the alveolar implosive /ɗ/ as postalveolar, without giving reasons.[11]
Vowels of Mursi[12]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a
  • Both Mütze and Firew agree on the vowel inventory and on the chosen transcription, as shown above.[13]
  • Even though vowel length appears phonetically in Mursi, it can be explained by the elision of weak consonants between identical vowels.[14]

Tone

Both Mütze[15] and Firew[16] agree that there are only two underlying tone levels in Mursi, as opposed to larger inventories proposed by Turton and Bender[17] and Moges.[18]

Grammar

The Mursi grammar makes use of the following parts of speech: nouns,[19] verbs,[20] adjectives,[21] pronouns,[22] adverbs,[23] adpositions,[24] question words,[25] quantifiers,[24] connectors,[26] discourse particles,[27] interjections,[28] ideophones,[24] and expressives.[24]

Nouns

Nouns can be inflected for number and case.[29] The number marking system is very complex, using suffixation, suppletion or tone to either mark plurals from singular bases, or singulatives from plural bases.[30] Mursi preverbal subjects and all objects are unmarked,[31] whereas postverbal subjects are marked by a nominative case. Further cases are the oblique case and the genitive case.[31] Modified nouns receive a special morphological marking called construct form by Mütze.[32]

Notes
  1. "Ethiopian Census 2007". csa.gov.et. Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency. 2007. Archived from the original on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  2. Firew (2021), p. 1
  3. Firew (2021), pp. 19 f
  4. Firew (2021), pp. 36 f
  5. Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (1998). "Surmic Languages and Cultures: an Introduction". In Dimmendaal, Gerrit J.; Last, Marco (eds.). Surmic Languages and Cultures. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 35–81.
  6. Firew (2021) p. 45
  7. Mütze (2014), p. 26
  8. Firew (2021), p. 46
  9. Mütze (2014), pp. 26 f
  10. Firew (2021), pp. 46 f
  11. Firew (2021), p. 46; on pp. 49 f he even several times calls it velar
  12. Mütze (2014), p. 37
  13. Firew (2021), p. 59
  14. Mütze (2014), p. 39
  15. Mütze (2014), p. 42
  16. Firew (2021), p. 86
  17. Turton & Bender (1976, p. 559)
  18. Moges Yigezu (2001). A Comparative Study of the Phonetics and Phonology of Surmic Languages. Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles.
  19. Firew (2021), p. 102
  20. Firew (2021), p. 128
  21. Firew (2021), p. 130
  22. Firew (2021), p.132
  23. Firew (2021), p. 143
  24. Firew (2021), p. 151
  25. Firew (2021), p. 154
  26. Firew (2021), p. 161
  27. Firew (2021), p. 163
  28. Firew (2021), p. 168
  29. Mütze (2014), p. 47
  30. Firew (2021), ch. 6.2
  31. Mütze (2014), p. 53
  32. Mütze (2014), p. 62

Bibliography
  • Firew Girma Worku (2021). A Grammar of Mursi: A Nilo-Saharan Language of Ethiopia (Thesis). Brill: Leiden. doi:10.1163/9789004449916.
  • Moges Yigezu; Turton, David (2005). "Latin Based Mursi Orthography". ELRC Working Papers. Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Languages Research Center. 1 (2): 242–57. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  • Mütze, Bettina (2014). A Sketch of the Mursi Language (MA thesis). Gloucester: Redcliff College, University of Gloucestershire.
  • Turton, David; Bender, M. Lionel (1976). "Mursi". In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.). The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. pp. 533–561.
  • Turton, David; Moges Yigezu; Oliserali Olibui (2008). Mursi-English-Amharic Dictionary. Addis Ababa: Culture and Arts Society of Ethiopia.
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