Kare language (Adamawa)

Kare
Native to	Central African Republic, Cameroon
Native speakers	(97,000 cited 1996–2000) 62,000 Kare, 35,000 Tale in CAR (1996)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Mbum–Day Mbum Central Mbum Karang Kare
Dialects	Kare (Kari, Kali) ? Tale
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kbn
Glottolog	kare1338
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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Kare (Kãrɛ̃, Kareng; autonym , where = 'mouth') is a southern Mbum language of the Central African Republic, spoken by the Kare people in the mountains of the northeasterly Ouham-Pendé prefecture around Bocaranga. It is spoken by around 97,000 people in the country, and another few thousand speakers in Cameroon. The language's presence on the southeastern edge of the Mbum family is thought to reflect early 19th-century migrations from the Adamawa Plateau, fleeing Fulani raids.

Ethnologue 17 reports that Kare is intelligible with Mbum proper. However, languages more closely related to either are not reported to be intelligible. Ethnologue lists Tale (Tali) as a dialect, but Blench (2004) leaves it unclassified within the Mbum languages. Ethnologue also lists Kali as a synonym; Blench lists a Kali language in a different branch of the Mbum languages.

Phonology

Kare has the following consonantal phonemes:

Consonant phonemes

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Labio- velar		Glottal
Implosive		ɓ				ɗ
Stop	p	b			t	d			k	ɡ	kp	ɡb
Prenasalized stop		ᵐb				ⁿd				ᵑg		ᵑɡb
Fricative			f	v	s	z							h
Prenasalized fricative						ⁿz
Approximant						l				j		w
Flap				ⱱ		r

It has the following vowel phonemes:

	Oral vowels		Nasal vowels
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	i	u	ĩ	ũ
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ	ɛ̃	ɔ̃
Open	a		ã

There is a phonological contrast between high and low tone (e.g. 'say' vs. 'laugh'), and a rarer phonetic mid tone whose phonological status is not established. Only monosyllabic words may bear rising or falling tone.

Grammar

The basic word order of Kare is subject–verb–object: Template:Interlinear

Negation is handled with the sentence-final particle 'not'; when negated, the locative copula 'be (in a place)' is replaced by , and the equative copula 'be (equivalent to)' by .

Verbal nouns are formed by raising the last syllable's tone and adding a suffix -Cà, where C = l or r after an oral vowel, n after a nasal vowel, and is empty after a consonant: 'deny' > 'denial', 'untie' > 'untying'.

Pronouns

Kare has no grammatical gender. Its personal pronouns are as follows:

	Free	Subject	Object
I
you sg.
he/she/it
we
you pl.
they

To these may be added 'each other, other'.

Noun phrases

There is a closed class of morphologically invariant adjectives (e.g. 'new', 'red'), which typically precede the noun but may also follow it to indicate a permanent quality, or may be used as nouns in their own right. Determiners ( 'other', 'the', 'this', 'that', 'that yonder') follow the noun, and are followed by the plural marker : Template:Interlinear

Numerals and quantifiers come at the end, following the (optional) plural marker: Template:Interlinear Template:Interlinear

Direct genitives are formed by juxtaposition Template:Interlinear

analytic genitives use the particle Template:Interlinear

Relative clauses are formed with a demonstrative followed (not always immediately) by the relative marker Template:Interlinear

Prepositions

All adpositions in Kare precede their complement. There are four primary (pure) prepositions: 'with (instrumental)', 'with (comitative)', 'in', 'like', Template:Interlinear

Alongside these there are a number of secondary postpositions transparently derived from nouns (often body parts), e.g. 'head' > 'on top of'.

References

Bibliography

• Lim, François (1997). Description linguistique du Kare (phonologie-syntaxe). Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle.
• Roger Blench, 2004. List of Adamawa languages (ms)