A description of Tima Sounds

Abstract

 As is the case with many languages in the Sudan, the Tima language in the Nuba Mountains is considered to be highly endangered (Dimmendaal and Mugaddam 2005). This is because the language is no longer spoken by children, especially those who grow up in Khartoum state. Another reason for the endangerment is the multilingualism in the Tima area. Tima young people tend to use Arabic and English more often in their daily interaction outside the home domain. Dimmendaal & Voeltz (2007: 626) noted that “the Tima language is seriously endangered as a result of the encroaching role of Sudanese Arabic”.  The present paper is a part of a documentation project has been conducted to stabilize the endangered situation of Tima. This documentation project is aiming at providing a description of the sound system, as well as the morphological structures of this language. In addition to this, a trilingual dictionary including Tima, Arabic, and English is also provided. Since the investigation of sounds represent the initial concern of a language description, this paper deals with the description of the sound system of Tima.