Tegem language

Tegem
Tegem
Jebel Tekeim
Region	Nuba Hills, Sudan
Ethnicity	Lafofa
Native speakers	(5,100 all Lalofa cited 1984)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Lafofa Tegem; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(included in Lafofa [laf])
Glottolog	jebe1249

Tegem, also Jebel Tekeim, is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Kordofan, Sudan. It is sometimes considered a dialect of Lafofa, which is poorly attested.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪			ʈ	c	k
	voiced	b	d̪				ɟ	ɡ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd̪			ᶯɖ	ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ
Nasal		m		n			ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic				r		ɽ
Sonorant		w		l	ɫ		j		h

Labialization [ʷ] is also said to occur among sounds.
The following sounds can occur as geminated, [bː, mː, t̪ː, d̪ː, rː, lː, ɫː, ʈː, cː, ɟː, kː].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ		ʌ	ɔ
Open	æ	a	ɑ

Vowel length is also distinctive.

References

↑ Tegem at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
↑ Sosal Altayeb Mohammed Ali, Ahmed (2018). A Phonological Study of the Tegem Language. University of Cape Town.

Sources

Roger Blench, 2011 (ms), "Does Kordofanian constitute a group and if not, where does its languages fit into Niger-Congo?"

This article about Kordofanian languages is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.

[e25-1] Tegem at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] Sosal Altayeb Mohammed Ali, Ahmed (2018). A Phonological Study of the Tegem Language. University of Cape Town.

Tegem
Jebel Tekeim
Region	Nuba Hills, Sudan
Ethnicity	Lafofa
Native speakers	(5,100 all Lalofa cited 1984)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Lafofa Tegem
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(included in Lafofa [laf])
Glottolog	`jebe1249`