Tobias Barreto
Vili | |
---|---|
Civili[1] | |
Native to | Republic of the Congo, Gabon |
Native speakers | (100,000 cited 2000)[2] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | vif |
Glottolog | vili1238 |
H.12 [3] |
Vili (Civili) is one of the Zone H Bantu languages, grouped with the Kongo clade.
The language has a few thousand native speakers spread along the coast between southern Gabon and Cabinda, most of them in the Republic of the Congo's Kouilou, Pointe-Noire and Niari departments. The Vili people (singular Muvili, plural Bavili) were the population of the 17th- to 18th-century Kingdom of Loango in the same region.
Phonology
Consonants
Labial | Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||
Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k |
voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | |
prenasal vl. | ᵐp | ⁿt | ᶮt͡ʃ | ᵑk | |
prenasal vd. | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮd͡ʒ | ᵑɡ | |
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ||
voiced | v | z | |||
prenasal vl. | ᶬf | ⁿs | |||
prenasal vd. | ᶬv | ⁿz | |||
Approximant | w | l | j |
Consonants may also be labialized [ʷ] when preceding /w/.[4][5]
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i iː | u uː | |
Close-mid | e eː | ə | o oː |
Open-mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː | |
Open | a aː |
References
- ^ Civili is pronounced Tchivili and can also be pronounced Tshivili.
- ^ Vili at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ Loëmbe, Gervais (2005). Parlons vili: langue et culture de Loango. Paris: L'Harmattan.
- ^ Tele-Pemba, Audrey Mariette (2009). Éléments pour une approche comparée des emprunts lexicaux du civili du Gabon, du Congo-Brazzaville et du Cabinda: proposition d'un modèle de dictionnaire. Libreville: Université Omar Bongo.
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: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
External links
- Vili at WolframAlpha