Wapan language
Jukunoid language of Nigeria, also called Wukari or Kororofa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wapan (Jukun Wapan) or Kororofa,[2] also known as Wukari after the local town of Wukari, is a major Jukunoid language[3] of Nigeria.
| Wapan | |
|---|---|
| Jukun | |
| Native to | Nigeria |
| Region | Taraba State, Plateau State, Nasarawa State |
Native speakers | (100,000 cited 1994)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | juk |
| Glottolog | wapa1235 |
| ELP | Wapan |
Varieties
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio- velar |
Glottal | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | lab. | plain | pal. | lab. | plain | pal. | lab. | plain | pal. | lab. | ||||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʲ | pʷ | t | tʲ | k | kʲ | kʷ | k͡p | |||||
| voiced | b | bʲ | bʷ | d | dʲ | ɡ | ɡʲ | ɡ͡b | |||||||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ᵐbʲ | ⁿd | ⁿdʲ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʲ | |||||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | t͡sʷ | ||||||||||||
| voiced | d͡z | d͡zʷ | |||||||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | fʲ | s | sʲ | sʷ | h | hʲ | hʷ | ||||||
| voiced | v | vʲ | z | zʲ | |||||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||||||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||||||||||
Vowels
- Vowels are also typically always pronounced as nasalized when after nasal consonants.[4]
Nasal consonants
Wapan and other Jukunoid languages are interesting in the development of asymmetrical patterns of nasal and oral consonants in West Africa.
One could posit that voiced oral stops become nasal before nasal vowels, sometimes at the expense of having more nasal than oral vowels, which is typologically odd, or that nasal stops denasalise before oral vowels, which is typologically odd as well.
Oral vowels are allowed only in syllables like ba, mba, nasal vowels in bã, mã.
Historically, however, the consonants nasalized: *mb became **mm before nasal vowels and then reduced to *m, leaving the current asymmetric distribution.[5]
| allophonic Ṽ next to N | *mã | *mãm | *mba | *mbãm | *ba | *bãm |
| *mb → *mm/_Ṽ | *mã | *mãm | *mba | *mmãm | *ba | *bãm |
| *mm → *m | *mã | *mãm | *mba | *mãm | *ba | *bãm |
| loss of final C | mã | mã | mba | mã | ba | bã |
