Kabba language

Sara language spoken in central Africa

Kaba
Kabba of Gore
Native to	Central African Republic, Chad
Ethnicity	Sara people
Native speakers	(72,000 Kaba in CAR cited 1996, and 11,000 in Chad cited 1971)^[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Central Sudanic Bongo–Bagirmi Sara languages West Kaba
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`ksp`
Glottolog	`kaba1281`

Kaba (Kabba), or Kabba of Goré, is a language of the Sara people in Central African Republic and Chad, with around 100,000 speakers.

There are several languages named Kaba, which is a local generic term approximately equivalent to Sara. Kaba of Gore is confusing classified as a Sara rather than as a Kaba language.

Kabba is a tonal language. There are three tones, High (H) Mid (M) and Low (L).

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	(ŋ)
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	(ʔ)
	voiced	b	d		g
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Affricate	voiceless		(ts)	tʃ
	voiced		(dz)	dʒ
	prenasal		(ⁿdz)	ⁿdʒ
Fricative			s			(h)
Tap			ɾ
Lateral			l
Approximant		w		j

The glottal stop [ʔ] is only heard in word-initial position, before vowels.
/h/ occurs only in limited distribution.
Sounds /t, d, ⁿd/ are heard in complimentary distribution with affricate sounds [ts, dz, ⁿdz] when in word initial position before /i/.
/ɗ/ may have a retroflex [ɽ] or trill [r] allophone, when in intervocalic positions.
/ɾ/ may also be heard as a retroflex [ɽ] in free variation.
[ŋ] occurs as an allophone of /n/ when before a velar stop, or when at the end of root words or morphemes.^[2]

Vowels

Oral vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː	(ɨ)	u uː
Close-mid	e eː	ə	o oː
Open-mid	ɛ ɛː	ə	ɔ ɔː
Open		a aː

/ə/ is heard as [ɨ] when in CVCV open syllables.

Nasal vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	ĩ		ũ
Mid	ɛ̃	ə̃	ɔ̃
Open		ã

References

^ Kaba at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Moser, Rosmarie (2004). Kabba: A Nilo-Saharan Language of the Central African Republic. München: Lincom.