Engenni language

Engenni
Ẹgẹnẹ
Native toNigeria
RegionBayelsa State, Rivers State
EthnicityEngenni people
Native speakers
(20,000 cited 1980)[1]
Niger–Congo
Language codes
ISO 639-3enn
Glottologenge1239[2]

Engenni (Ẹgẹnẹ) is an Edoid language of Nigeria.

Grammar

Engenni is a fairly isolating language, having little affixation.[3] There is no plural form for words. It has definite articles, but no indefinite articles. There is a two-contrast with regards to demonstratives, while pronominal and adnominal demonstratives are identical (as in English). Verbs are marked for perfective/imperfective aspect, but there is no past tense.[4]

Engenni is an SVO language that uses prepositions. Adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals follow the noun they describe. Yes–no questions are marked with a special particle, which goes at the end of the question. Negation is indicated by a change in tone.

gollark: Interesting question! I don't actually know. Probably other investors being smarter than reddit and the shortselly ones.
gollark: The stock market grows slightly faster than inflation generally.
gollark: So you should just shove your money in index funds and it will increase slightly.
gollark: The market grows at single-digit percents a year.
gollark: Actually, no.

References

  1. Engenni at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Engenni". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Thomas, Elaine. 1978. A Grammatical Description of the Engenni Language. Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics, 60. 60. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. "WALS Online - Language Engenni".


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