Tera is a Chadic dialect cluster spoken in northeastern Nigeria in the north and eastern parts of Gombe State and Borno State. Blench (2006) believes Pidlimdi (Hinna) dialect is a separate language.Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List (ms)

Varieties Blench lists these language varieties as part of the Tera language cluster.

Nyimatli Pidlimdi Bura Kokura

Phonology +Consonants Labial Alveolar Post-al./Palatal Velar Glottal plain palatal. median lateral plain labial. Nasal Stop plain prenasal. implosive Fricative Approximant plain glottal. Trill

Voiceless plosives are lightly aspirated but unreleased before another consonant. and formally had and respectively as allophones but the two pairs have split; however, the alveolar plosives never precede front vowels and the postalveolar affricates rarely precede anything but front vowels. is a relatively new phoneme, appearing in loanwords from English and Hausa. derives from a that has lost its alveolar contact while retaining the palatal and glottal action.

+Vowels Front Central Back Close Mid Open

The mid vowels are true-mid . The open vowels are central . in closed syllables is [ɨ̞]

Vowel length contrasts are neutralized in monosyllabic words with no coda consonants.

All vowels but and are more open in closed syllables such as in ('to plait') and ('to cook soup'). and tend to be fronted to when following palatalized consonants.

Diphthongs, which have the same length as long vowels, consist of a non-high vowel and a high vowel: Diphthong Example Orthography Gloss ɓeu 'sour' woi 'child' ghai 'town' dlau 'sickle'

Phonetically, these diphthongs are .

Tone Tera is a tonal language, distinguishing high, mid and low tone. Tone is not indicated orthographically since no minimal trios exist; minimal pairs can be distinguished by context.

Orthography The first publication in Tera was Labar Mbarkandu nu Yohanna Bula Ki, a translation of the Gospel of John, which established an orthographic system. In 2004, this orthographic system was revised.

References

Bibliography