Tegali language: Difference between revisions

}}'''Tegali'''  (also spelled  ''Tagale, Tegele, Tekele, Togole'') is a  [[Kordofanian languages|Kordofanian]]  language in the  [[Rashad languages|Rashad]]  family, which belongs to the larger [[Niger–Congo]] phylum (Greenberg 1963, Schadeberg 1981, Williamson & Blench 2000).<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/63566|title=Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages No. 11|work=SIL International|access-date=2017-04-30|language=en}}</ref> It is spoken in  [[South Kordofan]]  state,  [[Sudan]].

The Rashad family of language consists of two  [[Dialect continuum|dialect clusters]], "Tegali" and "[[Tagoi language|Tagoi]]". They are spoken on two mountain ranges to the north and north-west of Rashad.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A description of the Orig language: (Southern Kordofan), based on the notes of Fr. Carlo Muratori. Tervuren: Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale|last=Schadeberg|first=Thilo C.|last2=Elias|first2=Philip|publisher=Musee Royal De L'afrique Centrale|year=1979|isbn=|location=|pages=3}}</ref> These languages are spoken in the Tegali Hills in the north-east of the [[Nuba Mountains]], the home of the former "Tegali Kingdom".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stevenson|first=R. C.|date=January 1964|title=LINGUISTIC RESEARCH IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS—II|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/41716860|journal=Sudan Notes and Records|volume=45|pages=79-10279–102}}</ref>

Tegali has three varieties, Rashad (Gom, Kom, Kome, Ngakom), Tegali, and Tingal (Kajaja, Kajakja). ''Ethnologue''  states that Rashed and Tegali dialects are nearly identical.<ref name=":1" /> Tucker and Bryan list Rashad  as almost identical to Tegali, "perhaps a mere variation of one language";<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa|last=Tucker|first=A. N.|last2=Bryan|first2=M. A.|publisher=Oxford University Press Published for the International African Institute|year=1956|isbn=|location=London|pages=270}}</ref> however, Greenberg lists it as a separate language.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Greenberg|first=Joseph H.|date=1950-01-01|title=Studies in African Linguistic Classification: VII. Smaller Families; Index of Languages|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3628564|journal=Southwestern Journal of Anthropology|volume=6|issue=4|pages=388–398}}</ref> Welmers suggests Tingal as a dialect of Tegali;<ref>{{Cite book|title=African Language Structures|last=Welmers|first=William Everett|publisher=University of California Press|year=1973|isbn=|location=Berkeley|pages=}}</ref> Tucker and Bryan report this as different from Tegali and Rashad, but as definitely belonging to the Tegali branch.<ref name=":2" />

There are 35,700 native speakers of Tegali in  [[South Kordofan]]  state,  [[Sudan]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/ras|title=Tegali|work=Ethnologue|access-date=2017-04-28}}</ref> Speakers are distributed in the hills between the Rashud-Rashad and Rashad-Umm Ruwaba roads, with a few outlying hills west of Rashad (including Tagoi and Tarjok) and scattered hills south of Rashad.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Voegelin|first=C.F.|last2=Voegelin|first2=F.M.|date=May 1964|title=Languages of the World: Indo-Pacific Fascicle One|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30022465|journal=Anthropological Linguistics|volume=6|pages=195-196195–196}}</ref>

Among the three dialects, Tegali has about 16,000 speakers located on the  [[Taqali|Tegali]]  range.  Rashad has about 5,000 speakers in the Rashad hills in the southern part of the Tegali range, also in Rashad town. Tingal (Kajakja) has about 2,100 speakers.<ref name=":0" />

Tegali is closely related to  [[Tagoi language|Tagoi]]. The most conspicuous difference between the two dialect clusters is that Tagoi has a complex system of  [[Nounnoun class|noun classes]] es while Tegali does not. Tegali and Tagoi share about 70% basic vocabulary (100-word list). Different explanations exist for why Tegali dialects lack of noun class system.  [[Joseph Greenberg|Greenberg]]  (1963), who excludes the possibility of mass borrowing of basic vocabulary in  [[Tagoi language|Tegoi]], regards the two dialect clusters as closely related and assumes the loss of noun classes in the Tegali dialects.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A survey of Kordofanian|last=Schadeberg|first=Thilo C.|publisher=Hamburg: Helmut Buske|year=1981|isbn=|location=|pages=67-8067–80}}</ref>

Tegali has a counting system similar to that of  Tagoi. But now they seemed have developed a more complete numeral  system. There is an option for the number 20 'fəŋəndən rəkkʊ'.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mpi-lingweb.shh.mpg.de/numeral/Tegali.htm|title=Tegali, Sudan|last=Norton|first=Russell|date=January 25, 2008|website=Numeral Systems of the World's Languages|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=}}</ref>

* Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2017.  ''[http://www.ethnologue.com Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth edition.]''  Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

* Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspelmath, Martin. 2017.  ''[http://glottolog.org Glottolog 3.0.]''  Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.