Mimi of Decorse
Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Gaudefroy-Demombynes. Joseph Greenberg (1960) classified it as a Maban language, like the rather remote Maban relative Mimi of Nachtigal. However, George Starostin (2011) rejects this classification, arguing that similarities to Maban are due to contact with locally dominant Maba (the similarities are with that language specifically, not with the entire Maban family), and provisionally regards it as a language isolate, though it is suggestive of Central Sudanic.[2]
The more stable of Mimi-D and Mimi-N's attested vocabulary is as follows:
| gloss | Mimi-D | Mimi-N |
|---|
| two | mel | søn |
| eye | dyo | kal |
| fire | sou | |
| stone | muguru | |
| hand | sil | rai |
| what | ɲeta | |
| die | dafaya | |
| drink | andʒi | ab |
| dog | | ɲuk |
| moon | aɾ | |
| claw/nail | fer | |
| blood | | ari |
| one | deg | ul-un |
| tooth | ɲain | ziːk |
| eat | ɲyam | |
| hair | suf (Arabic?) | fuːl |
| water | engi | sun (Fur?) |
| nose | fir | hur |
| mouth | ɲyo | mil |
| ear | feɾ | kuyi |
| bird | | kabal-a |
| bone | | kadʒi |
| sun | sey | |
| tree | su | |
| kill | kuduma | |
| foot | rep | zaŋ |
| horn | kamin | |
| meat | ɲyu | neŋ |
| egg | dʒulut | |
| black | liwuk | |
| head | bo | kidʒ-i |
| night | lem | |
| fish | gonas | |
| see | yakoe | |
See also
References
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mimi-Gaudefroy". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Starostin, George. On Mimi, Journal of Language Relationship, v. 6, 2011, pp. 115-140.