Pɛrɛ language
Endangered Volta-Congo language of Ivory Coast
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pɛrɛ or Mbre is a moribund language of the Ivory Coast.
-
Atlantic–Congo
- Volta–Congo
- (unclassified)
- Pɛrɛ
- (unclassified)
- Volta–Congo
| Pɛrɛ | |
|---|---|
| Mbre | |
| Native to | Ivory Coast |
| Region | Marabadiassa |
Native speakers | 50 (2017)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mka |
| Glottolog | mbre1244 |
| ELP | Mbre |
It is known as Pɛrɛ [also rendered Prɛ] by its speakers and as Bɛrɛ [also rendered Brɛ] by the locally dominant Koro people.
Pɛrɛ was first described in an unpublished manuscript by Denis Creissels. A grammar, dictionary and texts have been published by Jeffrey Heath and Brahima Tioté.
Sociolinguistic situation
Pɛrɛ is spoken in the village of Bondosso – and marginally in Niantibo – not far from the city of Bouaké, Ivory Coast. Until recently it was also spoken in the village of Kouakoudougou. The speakers are a numu (blacksmith) caste among the Mande.
It had 30 active speakers in 2019 out of an ethnic population that was 700 in the year 2000.
Speakers are shifting to the neighbouring Manding language Koro, and the language has large numbers of Manding loanwords.
Classification
Pɛrɛ does not appear to belong to any of the traditional branches of the Niger–Congo language family. It does not have the verb extensions or noun classes characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo languages. Roger Blench suspects it may form its own branch, though perhaps not far from the Kwa languages.
Phonology
The phonology section below is sourced from Heath & Tioté (2019).
Tones
There are two tones, a /H/ and /L/, but phonetically /L/ may be realized as mid tone when followed by another /L/. Grammatical use of tone includes the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect.
Vowels
There are seven vowel qualities, with an ATR distinction in the mid vowels, but no vowel harmony. All seven may be long or short, nasal or oral. /CVɾV/ tends to be realized as [CəɾV] for any short vowel.
Consonants
The consonant inventory is also typical for the area, with marginal /h/ and /ʔ/.
| Labial | Alveolar | Alveopalatal | Velar | Labial velar | Laryngeal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | (c) | k | kp | |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ɡb | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | (ʃ) | |||
| voiced | (z) | (ɣ) | |||||
| Rhotic/Tap | ɾ ɾ̃ | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋm | ||
| Semivowel | j ȷ̃ | w w̃ | |||||
| Aspiration | (h) | ||||||
| Glottal stop | (ʔ) | ||||||
/CjV/ and /CwV/ sequences occur.
Grammar
Nouns have an "absolute" suffix /a/ that appears at the end of a noun phrase and in citation form. Word order is SVOX. There are phrasal verbs with postpositions.
