Yeyi language

Yeyi
Shiyɛyi
Native to	Namibia, Botswana
Region	along the Okavango River
Ethnicity	Yeyi people
Native speakers	(55,000 cited 2001)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu (Zone R) Yeyi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yey
Glottolog	yeyi1239
Guthrie code	R.40 (R.41)[2]
ELP	Yeyi
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Yeyi (autoethnonym Shiyɛyi) is a Bantu language[3] spoken by approximately 50,000 Yeyi people along the Okavango River in Namibia and Botswana.

Yeyi, influenced by Juu languages, is one of several Bantu languages along the Okavango with clicks. It has the largest known inventory of clicks of any Bantu language, with dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral articulations. Though most of its older speakers prefer Yeyi in normal conversation, it is being gradually phased out in Botswana by a popular move towards Tswana, with Yeyi only being learned by children in a few villages. Yeyi speakers in the Caprivi Strip of north-eastern Namibia, however, retain Yeyi in villages (including Linyanti), but may also speak the regional lingua franca, Lozi.

The main dialect is called Shirwanga. A slight majority of Botswana Yeyi are monolingual in the national language, Tswana, and the majority of the rest are bilingual.

The Kamanakao Association was formed in 1995[4] as a pressure group for the linguistic and cultural rights of the Wayeyi tribe, promoting the Seyeyi language, and preserving cultural heritage.[5][6] Although the Wayeyi tribe are a majority in Botswana, theirs is a minority language.[6]

Lydia Nyati-Ramahobo who was a founder member of the association published The National Language: A Resource or a Problem? The Implementation of the Language Policy of Botswana in 2001.[7][8]

Yeyi appears to be a divergent lineage of Bantu.[9] It is usually classified as a member of the R Zone Bantu languages. The language has been phonetically influenced by the Ju languages, though it is no longer in contact with them.

Many authors have attempted to transcribe the phonemic inventory of Yeyi, with varying levels of consistency.[10] Broadly, all sources recognize that the phonology is characterized by an extensive consonant inventory combined with a small vowel inventory (albeit a tonal one, though this feature is not analyzed as consistently as the other axioms).[11] The most descriptive study surrounding this categorization, Seidel (2008),[12] is used for the tables listed below. Prior sources had not included the additional categorization of prenasalized consonants.[13]

Yeyi vowels[12]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

Vowel length is also distinctive.

• Vowel sounds /ɛ ɔ/ are phonetically noted [ɛ̝ ɔ̝].
• /ɔ/ can also be heard as [ʊ] in word-final position. /i/ can also be heard as [ə] in prefixes.
• Sounds /i u a/ can be heard as nasalized [ĩ ũ ã] when preceding nasal consonants. A nasal [ɛ̝̃] can also be heard, but only in stem-internal position.
• Sounds /i u/ can tend to be centralized as [ɨ ʉ] following fricative and sibilant sounds.

Yeyi consonants[12]

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Glottal
				plain	pal.	sibilant		plain	pal.
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p		t		ts	tʃ	k	kʲ	(ʔ)
	aspirated	pʰ		tʰ		tsʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ	kʰʲ
	ejective			tʼ		tsʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	kʲʼ
	voiced	b		d		dz	dʒ	ɡ	ɡʲ
Fricative	voiceless		f			s	ʃ			h
	voiced	(β)	v			z	ʒ
Nasal		m		n			ɲ	ŋ
Liquid	rhotic			ɾ ~ r
	lateral			l	lʲ
Approximant		β̞					j	w

Other palatalized consonant sounds that can occur are /bʲ ⁿdʲ/.

• Most of the consonant sounds may also occur as labialized [Cʷ], however; their phonemic status is uncertain and may also exist as a result of a historically or synchronically underlying /u/ or diphthongized /ɔ/.
• A glottal stop sound [ʔ] can also occur, but only between vowels.
• Palatalized-velar stop consonants /kʲ kʰʲ kʲʼ ɡʲ/ may often be heard as palatal stop consonants [c cʰ cʼ ɟ].
• A labial approximant sound /β̞/ can range from an approximant sound to a fricative sound [β̞ ~ β].
• An alveolar rhotic consonant /r/ can be heard as a tap or a trill, but can also be heard as a retroflex tap [ɽ].
• An alveolar lateral consonant /l/ can also be heard as a retroflex lateral [ɭ].[12]

Prenasal consonants[12]

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar		Glottal
						plain	pal.
Plosive	voiceless	ᵐp		ⁿt		ᵑk	ᵑkʲ
	aspirated	ᵐpʰ		ⁿtʰ		ᵑkʰ
	ejective			ⁿtʼ		ᵑkʼ
	voiced	ᵐb		ⁿd		ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʲ
Affricate	voiceless			ⁿts	ⁿtʃ
	aspirated			ⁿtsʰ	ⁿtʃʰ
	voiced			ⁿdz	ⁿdʒ
	ejective			ⁿtsʼ
Fricative	voiceless		ᶬf	ⁿs	ⁿʃ
	voiced		ᶬv	ⁿz	ⁿʒ

• Prenasal palatalized-velar stop consonants /ᵑkʲ ᵑɡʲ/ may often be heard as prenasal palatal stop consonants [ᶮc ᶮɟ].

Yeyi clicks[14][12]

			Dental	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Lateral
Plosive	voiceless	plain	ᵏǀ	ᵏ!	ᵏǂ	ᵏǁ
		aspirated	ᵏǀʰ	ᵏ!ʰ	ᵏǂʰ	ᵏǁʰ
		nasalized (asp.)	ᵑǀʰ	ᵑ!ʰ
	voiced	plain	ᶢǀ	ᶢ!
		nasalized	ᵑǀ	ᵑ!	ᵑǂ	ᵑǁ
		prenasalized	ᵑᶢǀ	ᵑᶢ!

Lateral sounds only rarely occur.

Yeyi may have up to four click types, dental ǀ, alveolar ǃ, palatal ǂ, and lateral ǁ. However, the actual number of clicks is disputed, as researchers disagree on how many series of manner and phonation the language contrasts.

The following series of manner and phonation, shown here as the alveolar series, are recognized by different authors:

Click	Sommer & Voßen	Fulop et al.	Miller	Seidel	Description
ᵏǃʰ	√	√	√	√	aspirated
ᵏǃ	√	√	√	√	tenuis
ᶢǃ	√	√	√	√	voiced
ᵑǃ	√	√	√	–	nasal
ŋᵏǃʰ	–	–	–	√	prenasalized aspirated
ŋᵏǃ	–	–	–	√	prenasalized tenuis
ŋᶢǃ	√	(cluster)	√	√	prenasalized voiced
ᵏǃʼ	√	√	√	–	oral ejective
ᵑǃˀ	√	(cluster)	√	–	nasal glottalized
ǃqχ	√	–	√	–	uvular fricative
ǃqʼ	?	√	√	–	uvular ejective

The contrast between ejective and glottalized nasal clicks is unusual, but also occurs in Gǀwi.

Sommer & Voßen (1992) consider the uvular ejective series uncertain due to infrequency.

Fulop et al. (2002) studied the clicks of a limited vocabulary sample with 13 Yeyi speakers who were not from the core speaking area. There are in addition prenasalized clicks such as /ŋᶢǃ/ and /ᵑǃˀ/, but Fulop et al. analyze these as consonant clusters, not single sounds. In addition, a reported uvular affricated click appears to actually be velar, with the affrication a variant of aspiration, and so has been included under ᵏǃʰ. There is similar velar affrication with the dental ejective click among some speakers. The ejective clicks are apparently uvular.[15]

Miller (2011),[16] in a comparative study with other languages, interprets the uvular clicks as lingual-pulmonic /ǃ͡qχ/ and lingual–glottalic /ǃ͡qχʼ/. Unfortunately, the speakers interviewed were not from the core Yeyi-speaking area, and they often disagreed on which clicks to use. Although the six dental clicks (ǀ etc.) were nearly universal, only one of the lateral clicks was (the voiced click ᶢǁ). The alveolar clicks (ǃ etc.) were universal apart from the ejective, which was only attested from one speaker, but two of the palatal clicks were only used by half the speakers, at least in the sample vocabulary. The missing palatal and lateral clicks were substituted with alveolar or sometimes dental clicks (palatals only), and the missing ejective alveolar was substituted with a glottalized alveolar. Both of these patterns are consistent with studies of click loss, though it is possible that these speakers maintain these clicks in other words. 23 of the 24 possible permutations were attested in the sample vocabulary by at least one speaker, the exception being the ejective lateral click *ǁʼ. This research needs to be repeated in an area where the language is still vibrant.

Seidel (2008) says that Yeyi has three click types, dental ǀ, alveolar ǃ, and, in two words only, lateral ǁ. There are three basic series, tenuis, aspirated, and voiced, any of which may be prenasalized.

A Yeyi Talking Dictionary was produced by Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.

• Baumbach, Erdmann (1997). "Languages of the Eastern Caprivi". In Haacke, Wilfrid; Elderkin, Edward (eds.). Namibian Languages: Papers and Reports. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 307–451.
• Donnelly, Simon S (1990). Phonology and morphology of the noun in Yeeyi (BA Honours dissertation). University of Cape Town.
• Fulop, Sean; Ladefoged, Peter; Liu, Fang; Vossen, Rainer (2002). Yeyi clicks: Acoustic description and analysis.
• Fulop; Ladefoged; Voßen (2007). "The dying clicks of Yeyi". CiteSeerX 10.1.1.33.757.
• Gowlett, Derek (1997). "Aspects of Yeyi Diachronic Phonology". In Haacke, Wilfrid; Elderkin, Edward (eds.). Namibian Languages: Papers and Reports. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 235–264.
• Gunnink, Hilde (2023). "Vowel harmony in Yeyi". Studies in African Linguistics. 52 (13). Ghent University: 99–120. doi:10.32473/sal.52.Supplement.13.133938.
• Lusekelo, Amani (2009), Frank Seidel 2008. A Grammar of Yeyi. A Bantu Language of Southern Africa. (Review), Tanzania: Dar es Salaam University College of Education
• Seidel, Frank (2008). A Grammar of Yeyi: A Bantu Language of Southern Africa. R. Köppe.
• Sommer, Gabriele (1995). Sozialer Wandel und Sprachverhalten bei den Yeyi (Botswana), Ethnographie des Sprachwechsels. Cologne.}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• Yeyi Clicks: Acoustic Description and Analysis (2003)