Kanuri-Tubu

Kanuri-Tubu 

(also Kanuri-Teda, Kanuri), a group of languages spoken in northeastern Nigeria and the republics of Niger and Chad. The number of speakers does not exceed 3 million (1970, estimate), most of whom (2. 7 million) are Kanuri. Typo-logically, the Kanuri-Tubu languages are synthetic (partly inflectional). Kanuri-Tubu has five tones, which have grammatical and semantic meaning. The morphology is distinguished by a well-developed system of verbal inflection and by a regular and irregular conjugation system, which has an abundant variety of word-form derivations. The word order is subject-object-predicate.

REFERENCES

Lukas, J. A Study of the Kanuri Language: Grammar and Vocabulary. London, 1937.
Lukas, J. Die Sprache der Tubu in der Zentralen Sahara. Berlin, 1953.
Tucker, A. N, and M. A. Bryan. The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. London, 1956.
Greenberg, J. H. “The Languages of Africa.” International Journal of American Linguistics, 1963, vol. 29, no. 1.

N. V. OKHOTINA