Mafa language

Mafa is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria by the Mafa people.

Mafa
Mafahay
Native to	Cameroon, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Sierra Leone, Sudan
Region	Far North Province, Borno State, Adamawa State
Native speakers	2,000,000 (2005)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic Biu–Mandara Wandala–Mafa Mafa languages (A.5) South (c) Mafa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	maf
Glottolog	mafa1239

Dialects

Mafa is widely spoken in the department of Mayo-Tsanaga from Mokolo to the north. Mafa includes the following dialects.

• Central Mafa in Koza commune and in Mokolo town
• West Mafa in the northwest of Mokolo Commune (Magoumaz)
• East Mafa in the northeast (Soulede and Roua communes)

There are 136,000 speakers in Cameroon.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i iː		ɨ	ʉ	u uː
Open-mid	ɛ	œ			ɔ
Open			a

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
			plain	sibilant		plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Nasal		m	n			(ŋ)
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡s	t͡ʃ	k	kʷ	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	d͡z	d͡ʒ	ɡ	ɡʷ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd	ⁿd͡z	ⁿd͡ʒ	ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʷ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative	voiceless	f	ɬ	s	ʃ			h	hʷ
	voiced	v	ɮ	z	ʒ	ɣ	ɣʷ
Approximant			l		j		w
Trill			r

• /ᵑɡ/ is heard as a velar nasal [ŋ] when in word-final position.