Mbay, or Sara Mbay, is a Bongo–Bagirmi language of Chad and the Central African Republic.
| Mbay | |
|---|---|
| Sara Mbay | |
| Native to | Chad, Central African Republic |
Native speakers | (90,000 cited 1990–1996)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | myb |
| Glottolog | mbay1241 |
It is reported that Mbay does not have independent personal pronouns. The meaning is largely carried out by subject, object, and possessive affixes attached to verbs, prepositions, and nouns. Other words, such as yá̰a̰ "thing", dèē "person", tàa "speech", and lòo "place" are used somewhat pronominally as something, somebody, something said, and somewhere.[2]
First of all, Mbay language has plural nouns just like any other or most languages. Mbay languages pluralise nouns by using prefixes, for example, ƃa-na (child) is Ma-na (children).
To pluralize nouns these changes occur but note that the root word stays the same.
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| Ƃa- na (child) | Ma-na( children) |
| Do-sɛ (man) | Ro-sɛ (men) |
| ɳga-ta (woman) | Ba-ta (women) |
| Ku-sum (elder) | Gu-sum (elders) |
| To-pu (Friend) | Ko-pu (Friends) |
References
edit- ^ Mbay at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Keegan, John M. 1997. A Reference Grammar of Mbay. Munich: Lincom Europa. Cited in Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 26