Bena language

Bena is a Bantu language spoken by the Bena people of the Iringa region of Tanzania.

Not to be confused with Bena language (Adamawa).

Bena
Ekibena
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Bena
Native speakers	670,000 (2001)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Bena–Kinga (G60) Bena
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bez
Glottolog	bena1262[2]
Guthrie code	G.63[3]
Linguasphere	99-AUS-ub incl. varieties 99-AUS-uba...-ubg

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p		t		k
	voiced	b		d		ɡ
	prenasal	ᵐb		ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Affricate				ts
Fricative	voiceless		f	s			h
	voiced		v
	prenasal			ⁿs
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant				l	j	w

Voiceless sounds almost always occur as aspirated stops; [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ].

• /v/ can be realized as [ʋ] intervocalically.
• [ɖ] can occur as an allophone of /d/ before long non high vowels.
• [x] can occur as an allophone of /k/, /h/ in the Maswamu dialect.
• [cç, tʃ] can occur as allophones of /ts/, in the Twangabita dialect.
• [ⁿz] can occur as an allophone of /ⁿs/.
• [ɟ] can occur as an allophone of /j/ in the Maswamu dialect.
• [β, ʋ] can occur as allophones of /w/ among some speakers.
• Prenasalised stops may be devoiced when occurring word-finally (ex. /ᵐb/ ~ [ᵐb̥]).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	ɛ eː		o oː
Low		a aː

• /i, u/ before non-rounded vowels are recognized as glides [j, w].[4]

References

1. Bena at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Bena (Tanzania)". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
4. Morrison (2011)

• Morrison, Michelle Elizabeth (2011). A Reference Grammar of Bena (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Rice University. hdl:1911/70359.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)