The Bua Group languages (Chad, Adamawa 13): A comparative perspective

Pascal Boyeldieu (1) , Raimund Kastenholz (2) , Ulrich Kleinewillinghöfer (2) , Florian Lionnet

1 LLACAN - Langage, LAngues et Cultures d'Afrique
2 JGU - Johannes Gutenberg - Universität Mainz = Johannes Gutenberg University

The aim of the present paper is to sketch a state of the art regarding the Bua languages of Chad, a genetically related linguistic group that remains relatively little-known. Section 1 presents and lists the different languages that belong to this genetic unit. A historical review of the documentation is presented in Section 2. Section 3 lays out a lexicostatistical approach to the internal relationships of the languages, complemented by some other discriminating features. Some salient phonological and morphological features are discussed in Section 4 that gives a particular attention to the crucial noun class system of Kulaal. Section 5 deals with problems of comparison, correspondences and reconstruction within the Group. Lastly a word will be said about the current Bua languages comparative project in Section 6.

Mots clés: African linguistics; Bua languages; Adamawa languages; Chad

Domaines: Linguistique

Pascal Boyeldieu, Raimund Kastenholz, Ulrich Kleinewillinghöfer, Florian Lionnet. The Bua Group languages (Chad, Adamawa 13): A comparative perspective. Raija Kramer; Roland Kießling. Current approaches to Adamawa and Gur languages, 34, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, pp.53-126, 2018, AuÜ Afrika und Übersee Supplements, 978-3-89645-233-7. ⟨halshs-03096908⟩