Le songhay central

Overview & Synopsis

This article describes some aspects of the Central Songhay dialect, which consists of the speech of Hombre, the villages of Tinié and Filio, and the Marensé. This Central Songhay is diversified in itself but creamy distinct from Western Songhay (Timbuktu), Eastern Songhay (Gao) and Kaado Songhay (Tera-Gorouol). The emphasis in this article is on the description of aspects which differentiate Central Songhay from the other dialects on the phonological level. Several points which raise problems of analysis or interpretation are discussed, such as the place of nasals, palatals and labiovelars in the respective systems, the possible existence of a labialisation correlation in Marense and the reality of an opposition of degree between the mid vowels. The analysis of this last problem will indicate a more precise formulation of the rules of consonant combination, which are not homogeneous in all variants of the Central Songhay dialect. The article also incudes some remarks on the form of the tonal system, which can be analysed as a two value system.