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For the languages of Southern Africa and Papua New Guinea, see Naro language and Lala language (Papua New Guinea).
Nara
Nara-Bana
Native toEritrea
RegionGash-Barka
EthnicityNara
Native speakers
73,000 (2022)[1]
Dialects
  • Higir
  • Koyta
  • Santora
  • Mogoreeb
Latin
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-3nrb
Glottolognara1262
Linguistic map of Eritrea; Nara is spoken in the sea-blue region in the west

The Nara (Nera) or Barea (Barya) language is spoken by the Nara people in an area just to the north of Barentu in the Gash-Barka Region of western Eritrea.[2] The language is often confused with Kunama, which is at best only distantly related.

The endangerment status of Nara is unclear. According to Glottolog it is not endangered, but according to Tsige Hailemichael, the "...Nara language is in danger of quickly disappearing."[3]

Nara has been classified as Northern Eastern Sudanic by Rilly (2009:2),[4] but Glottolog considers the evidence unpersuasive and classifies Nara as an isolate.[5]

Dialects

There are four Nara dialects according to Rilly (2010:178):[6]

Higir and Mogoreeb are the larger tribes, while Saantoorta and Koyta are smaller tribes (Rilly 2010:178).

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab.
Stop voiceless t k kʷ
voiced b d dʒ g ɡʷ
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ
Fricative f s ʃ h
Nasal m n ŋ
Lateral l
Rhotic r
Approximant j w
  • Other sounds such as [z, c, kʼ, x, ʔ] occur from Tigre and Arabic.[7]

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i iː u uː
Mid e eː o oː
Open a aː

References

  1. ^ Nara at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Ethnologue report for language code:nrb". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  3. ^ Hailemichael, Tsige (2005-11-05). "Once Upon a Time… in Nara Language". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  4. ^ Rilly, Claude. 2009. From the Yellow Nile to the Blue Nile: The quest for water and the diffusion of Northern East Sudanic languages from the fourth to the first millennia BCE. Paper presented at ECAS 2009 (3rd European Conference on African Studies, Panel 142: African waters – water in Africa, barriers, paths, and resources: their impact on language, literature and history of people) in Leipzig, 4 to 7 June 2009.
  5. ^ "Glottolog 4.4 – Nara".
  6. ^ Rilly, Claude. 2010. Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-9042922372
  7. ^ Thompson, David E. (1976). Nera. In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.), The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia: Michigan State University. pp. 484–494.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nara_language