Mafa language

Mafa
Mafahay
Native to	Cameroon, Nigeria
Region	Far North Province, Borno State, Adamawa State
Native speakers	210,000 (2005)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic Biu–Mandara Wandala–Mafa Mafa languages (A.5) South (c) Mafa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	maf
Glottolog	mafa1239

Mafa is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria by the Mafa people.

Dialects

Mafa is widely spoken in the department of Mayo-Tsanaga from Mokolo to the north. Mafa includes the following dialects.^[2]

• Central Mafa in Koza commune and in Mokolo town
• West Mafa in the northwest of Mokolo Commune (Magoumaz)
• East Mafa in the northeast (Soulede and Roua communes)

There are 136,000 speakers in Cameroon.^[2]

Phonology

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i iː		ɨ	ʉ	u uː
Open-mid	ɛ	œ			ɔ
Open			a

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
			plain	sibilant		plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Nasal		m	n			(ŋ)
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡s	t͡ʃ	k	kʷ	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	d͡z	d͡ʒ	ɡ	ɡʷ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd	ⁿd͡z	ⁿd͡ʒ	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative	voiceless	f	ɬ	s	ʃ			h	hʷ
	voiced	v	ɮ	z	ʒ	ɣ	ɣʷ
Approximant			l		j		w
Trill			r

• /ᵑɡ/ is heard as a velar nasal [ŋ] when in word-final position.^[3]

Notes

1. Mafa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Binam Bikoi, Charles, ed. (2012). Atlas linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) [Linguistic Atlas of Cameroon]. Atlas linguistique de l'Afrique centrale (ALAC) (in French). Vol. 1: Inventaire des langues. Yaoundé: CERDOTOLA. ISBN 9789956796069.
3. Barreteau, Daniel; Le Bléis, Yves (1990). Lexique Mafa: Langue de la Famille Tchadique Parlée au Cameroun. Paris: Éditions de l'Orstom.