Buwal, also known as Ma Buwal, Bual, or Gadala, is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Cameroon in Far North Province in and around Gadala.
Phonology + Consonants LabialAlveolarLateral alveolarPalatalVelarLabialized velarLabial-velar Nasal Voiceless plosive Voiced plosive Prenasalized plosive Implosive Voiceless affricate Voiced affricate Prenasalized affricate Voiceless fricative Voiced fricative Flap Approximant
The labiodental flap is marginal, only occurring in two native Buwal words. The labial-velar plosives are also marginal; in particular, only occurs in one word, the ideophone .
Buwal has the vowels , which can occur in high, middle, or low tone. Each vowel has a variety of phonetic realizations. can occur as , and can occur as . The schwa can be analyzed as a solely epenthetic vowel. These vowels occur as rounded allophones when adjacent to a labialized consonant, and as front vowels when the word is palatalized.
Palatalization in Buwal occurs across an entire word, and also affects the affricate consonants , which surface as in a palatalized word. As a result, all of the vowels within a single word are either front or back, producing vowel harmony. An example of this contrast is between 'rat' (underlyingly ), which is non-palatalized, and (underlyingly ) 'turtle', which is palatalized. This process does not affect loanwords, e.g. 'oil' (from Fulfulde ) or 'school' (from French ). Some loanwords have been modified to accommodate Buwal phonology, e.g. 'tea', from Fulfulde .
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