The Tagoi language is a Kordofanian language

Kordofanian languages

The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of three to five language families spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan Province, Sudan. In 1963 Joseph Greenberg added them to the Niger–Congo family, creating his Niger–Kordofanian proposal...

, closely related to Tegali

Tegali language

Tegali is a Niger–Congo language in the Rashad family spoken in Kordofan, Sudan, in and around the town of Rashad. It is closely related to Tagoi....

, spoken near the town of Rashad

Rashad

Rashad as a surname may refer to:* Ahmad Rashād, American sportcaster and former professional footballer* Phylicia Rashād, American actressPeople with the given name Rashad:* Rashad Evans, American mixed martial arts fighter...

 in southern Kordofan

Kurdufan

Kurdufan , also spelled Kordofan, is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kurdufan, South Kurdufan, and West Kurdufan...

 in Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, about 12 N, 31 E. Unlike Tegali, it has a complex noun class

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

 system, which appears to have been borrowed from more typical Niger–Congo languages. It has several dialects, including Umali (Tumale), Goy (Tagoi proper), Moreb, and Orig (ŋóóriɡ, Turjuk)

The following describes the Orig dialect.

Sounds

The consonants are:

p	t	c	k
f	s
	r
	l
m	n	ɲ
		y	w

Stops are automatically voiced between two non-obstruent

Obstruent

An obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract, such as [k], [d͡ʒ] and [f]. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants....

s (obstruents = stop

Stop consonant

In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...

s or fricatives.)

Stops and sonorants may occur geminate. Some consonant clusters are allowed (almost invariably two-consonant), most involving sonorants; prenasalised ones are particularly common.

ʃ, h, z are found in some Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

s.

The vowel system is unclear; phonetically, it seems to be basically: a, e, i, o, u, ɛ, ɔ, ɪ, ʊ, ə.

There seem to be three phonemic tones

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

: high, low, and occasionally falling.

Nouns

Each noun consists of a prefix plus a stem; the prefix identifies its noun class

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

. It changes according to number

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

.

The genders

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

 include:

• w-, pl. y-: this gender seems to consist mainly of persons and animals. Eg: wùttar "chief" > yáttar "chiefs"; wín "snake" > yínét "snakes".
• bilabial-, pl. yi-, including several trees; eg wòr "um-kaddaqi tree" > yíwóórèn, púrn "upper arm" > yìbúrn.
• pl. with no initial change, including a number of kinship terms; eg màrá "road" > màrnát, àppá "father" > àppánàt
• t-, pl. y-: mostly body parts; eg tárák "skin" > yárák, téŋlàk "tongue" > yáŋùlàk.
• t-, pl. ŋ-: almost exclusively body parts; eg téŋlàk "tongue" > ŋéŋlàk, tìɲèn "tooth" > ŋìɲèn.
• t- with no plural: place names, mass nouns
• y-, pl. ŋ-: notably fruits and body parts, but also a wide variety of others. Eg yé "egg" > ŋíye; yìmbó "knee" > ŋìmbó.
• ŋ- with no plural: languages, liquids, possibly verbal nouns; eg ŋə̹́gdìráá "Arabic" (< kə̀dráá "Arab"), ŋàì "water".
• k-, pl. s-: seems to be the commonest gender, includes all sorts of semantic fields; eg kábà "hut" > sábà, kám "hair" > sám, kàdìrú "pig" > sàdìrú.
• c-, pl. ɲ-: includes a wide variety of semantic fields; derives diminutives; eg: cíŋ "child, boy" > ɲín; cúdén "bird" > ɲúdén.

In genitive (possessive) constructions, the head noun is followed by a linking element which agrees with it in class, followed by the possessor noun; eg ɲín ɲi-adam "children of Adam"; kʊs ki-gai "skull (ie bone of head)".

Adjectives

Adjectives follow the noun, and agree in noun class, i.e. in gender and number; eg kús kàlló "a thin bone" > sús sàlló "thin bones".

Demonstratives

Demonstratives too follow the noun, and agree in class. There are:

• three short : -i- "this" (with the agreement prefix copied after the i as well as before), -ur, -un "that". Eg: gálám kɛ́k "this pencil" > sálmát sɛ́s "these pencils"; gálám kur "that pencil".
• three long, formed by adding (-)-an to the previous; eg wùskén wèwán "this knife", gálám kurkan "that pencil".

Numbers

The numbers one to four are normal adjectives; eg yʊ́r yùkók "two hands". Other numbers' behavior is unknown. When used without a head noun, they appear as follows, with the prefix w- for numbers 1-5:

1. wàttá, ùttá
2. wùkkók
3. wìttá
4. wàrʊ̀m
5. wʊ̹̀ràm
6. ɲérér
7. ʊ̀mʊ̀rgʊ́
8. tùppá
9. kʊ́mnàsá(n)
10. kʊ́mán

Pronouns

The pronouns are as follows:

	Independent	Possessive (agree in class)	Verb subject	Verb object
I	yìgə̹́n	-ìríŋ	y-	àd-
you (sg.)	ɔ̀gə̜́n	-ìrɔ́ŋ	w-	nú-
he/she/it	tùgə̜́n	-ùrúŋ	-	- (í-?)
we	nìgə̹́n	-ìrín	n-	àníŋg(ì)-
you (pl.)	nɔ̀gə̜́n	-ìrɔ́n	ŋ-	núng(ì)-
they	nɛ̀gə̜́n	-ìrɛ́n	t-	níng(ì)-

Examples of verbal personal inflection: Musa àdúbìr "Musa beat me"; yàyá "I drink".

Interrogative pronouns include agn "what?", tá̹jí̹n "who?", nɛ́gán "where?", cínàcɛ̀n "which (boy)?"

Verbs

There appear to be at least four basic forms: present (e.g. y-ìlàm "I see"), past (e.g., y-ílàm "I saw"), imperative (e.g. k-ìlmɛ́ "see! (sg.)), and negative imperative (e.g., ánák w-èlm-ò "don't see! (sg.)). The difference between present and past is typically marked by tone: LH or occasionally LL in the present, HL in the past. Sometimes vowel changes are also observed. In the imperative, some verbs take a k- prefix, others do not; this may depend on whether or not the verb begins with a vowel.

The verb "to be" has different roots according to tense: -ɛ́n in the present tense, -ɪ́rɪ̀n in the past tense.

Negation of the verb is expressed by a prefix k-, followed by the verb "to be", inflected for person; negation of the verb "to be", by k-àrà in the present tense, k-ɪ̀rá in the past.

Verbal noun

Verbal noun

In linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...

s include agent noun

Agent noun

In linguistics, an agent noun is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, "driver" is an agent noun formed from the verb "drive". The endings "-er", "-or", and "-ist" are commonly used in English to form agent...

s in t- (e.g., t-ubi "beater"), gerund

Gerund

In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....

s in t- (e.g., t-àyá "drinkable"), and action nouns (e.g., ŋ-ìlàm "sight".)

Syntax

The basic word order is subject–object–verb, including in the imperative. Locative complements also precede the verb. Nominal sentences use the verb "to be". Modifiers consistently follow their head nouns.