Mimi of Decorse
Encyclopedia
Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

 that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi
Mimi language
Mimi is a name applied to several distinct and not particularly closely related Nilo-Saharan languages of the Wadai area of Chad, most commonly Amdang but also including two possibly Maban languages: Mimi of Nachtigal and Mimi of Decorse....

" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Gaudefroy-Demombynes. Joseph Greenberg (1960) classified it as a Maban language, like the rather remote Maban relative Mimi of Nachtigal
Mimi of Nachtigal
Mimi of Nachtigal, or Mimi-N, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1870 by Gustav Nachtigal. Greenberg classified it as a Maban language, though a distant one. Subsequent researchers have supported a remote relationship, though there is...

. However, George Starostin (2011) rejects this classification, feeling that similarities to Maban are due to contact with locally dominant Maba, and provisionally regards it as a language isolate, though it is suggestive of Central Sudanic.

The more stable of Mimi-D and Mimi-N's attested vocabulary is as follows:
gloss Mimi-D Mimi-N
two mel søn
eye dyo kal
fire sou
stone muguru
hand sil rai
what ɲeta
die dafaya
drink andʒi ab
dog ɲuk
moon
claw/nail fer
blood ari
one deg ul-un
tooth ɲain ziːk
eat ɲyam
hair suf (Arabic?) fuːl
water engi sun (Fur?)
nose fir hur
mouth ɲyo mil
ear feɾ kuyi
bird kabal-a
bone kadʒi
sun sey
tree su
kill kuduma
foot rep zaŋ
horn kamin
meat ɲyu neŋ
egg dʒulut
black liwuk
head bo kidʒ-i
night lem
fish gonas
see yakoe
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