Jukpë

My to do list for Jukpë can be found here. If you have any suggestions for additions, clean ups or clarifications then don't hesitate to add them!

If you have any other questions about this article leave a message on the talk page or send me message!

Jukpë ghijúkpë
Type
Agglutinative
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
Yes
Declensions
No
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
8 noun classes
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

General information

The ethnic flag of the Jukpë people.

The Jukpë language (English: [d͡ʒuːkpə], Jukpë: ghijúkpë [ɣìd͡ʒúk͡pə̥]) is the traditional language of the Jukpë people. It is spoken natively by around seventy thousand people in the north of Cameroon, eastern Nigeria, southern Chad and western Central African Republic. It is also used by Jukpë people and their descendants living abroad, most notably in Britain, France and South Africa.

Jukpë is an agglutinative language, it has a simple syllable structure and lacks diphthongs. There are thirty-two consonants and six vowels; with all vowels, except "ë", having two tones, high (◌́) and low (unmarked). Word order is mainly SVO but occasionally SOV and imperatives are normally placed at the beginning of sentences. Adpositions are prepositional and head direction is usually noun initial; that is that adjectives, numerals, demonstratives and genitives proceed the noun. Although Jukpë lacks grammatical gender there are eight noun classes that do in fact act similarly to grammatical genders. There are also two numbers and conjugations occur according to voice, mood, number, tense and aspect using various affixes.

Phonology and orthography

See also: IPA for Jukpë

Consonants

Jukpë has thirty-two consonants.

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Pharyngeal
Nasal	m̥ m		n̥ n		ɲ̊ ɲ	ŋ̊ ŋ	ŋ͡m
Plosive	p b		t d		c ɟ	k g	k͡p ɡ͡b
Fricative		f v	s z			x ɣ		ħ ʕ̝
Affricate				t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Approximant					j
Trill	ʙ
Flap or tap			ɾ

The table below shows how consonants correspond to the letters of the alphabet.

Grapheme		IPA	Description
M	m	[m]	bilabial nasal
MH	mh	[m̥]	voiceless bilabial nasal
N	n	[n]	alveolar nasal
NH	nh	[n̥]	voiceless alveolar nasal
NM	nm	[ŋ͡m]	labio-velar nasal
NY	ny	[ɲ]	palatal nasal
NYH	nyh	[ɲ̊]	voiceless palatal nasal
NG	ng	[ŋ]	velar nasal
NGH	ngh	[ŋ̊]	voiceless velar nasal
P	p	[p]	voiceless bilabial plosive
B	b	[b]	voiced bilabial plosive
T	t	[t]	voiceless alveolar plosive
D	d	[d]	voiced alveolar plosive
TH	th	[c]	voiceless palatal plosive
DH	dh	[ɟ]	voiced palatal plosive
K	k	[k]	voiceless velar plosive
G	g	[g]	voiced velar plosive
KP	kp	[k͡p]	voiceless labial-velar plosive
GB	gb	[ɡ͡b]	voiced labial-velar plosive
F	f	[f]	voiceless labiodental fricative
V	v	[v]	voiced labiodental fricative
S	s	[s]	voiceless alveolar fricative
Z	z	[z]	voiced alveolar fricative
KH	kh	[x]	voiceless velar fricative
GH	gh	[ɣ]	voiced velar fricative
H	h	[ħ]	voiceless pharyngeal fricative
Q	q	[ʕ̝]	voiced pharyngeal fricative
CH	ch	[t͡ʃ]	voiceless palato-alveolar affricate
J	j	[d͡ʒ]	voiced palato-alveolar affricate
Y	y	[j]	palatal approximant
BR	br	[ʙ]	bilabial trill
R	r	[ɾ]	alveolar tap

For simplicity's sake [ʕ̝] will henceforth be represented as [ʕ].

Vowels

There are six vowel phonemes in Jukpë and two tones; high (◌́) and low (unmarked).

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e̞	ə̥	o̞
Open	a

The table below shows how the vowel phonemes correspond to letters.

Grapheme		IPA	Description
I	i	[i]	close front unrounded vowel
U	u	[u]	close back rounded vowel
O	o	[o̞]	mid back rounded central vowel
Ë	ë	[ə̥]	voiceless mid central vowel
E	e	[e̞]	mid front unrounded vowel
A	a	[a]	open front unrounded vowel

All vowels except [ə̥] change according to tone and vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress.

Hereafter, [e̞] and [o̞] will be represented by the simplified [e] and [o] respectively.

Alphabet

• A B BR CH D DH E Ë F G GB GH H I J K KH KP M MH N NG NGH NH NM NY NYH O P Q R S T TH U V Y Z
• a b br ch d dh e ë f g gb gh h i j k kh kp m mh n ng ngh nh nm ny nyh o p q r s t th u v y z

N.B.: All digraphs and trigraphs are considered to be separate letters, whereas vowels with tonal marks are not.

Phonotactics

Jukpë words can only have the following forms:

• V(F)
• CV(F)
• VCV(F)
• CV...(F)
• VCV...(F)

Where "V" is any vowel, "C" is any consonant and "F" is any consonant except "q", "h", "y" or "br". One of the only exceptions to these forms is the prevocalic form of "and" - "nh" (the preconsonantal form of which is "nha").

The two main phonotactic restrictions are:

• Two vowels may not appear adjacent to one another within the same word.
• If two adjacent words end and start with the same consonant then that consonant becomes geminate.

Despite these rules they may be broken by loan words, e.g. "Mákrisít" /mákɾìsít/ ("Christ").

Grammar

Articles

Jukpë articles are used extremely sparingly, usually only for emphasis and in formal contexts. The definite article "ó" corresponds to the English "the" and the indefinite article "ë" corresponds to "a(n)" and "some". Articles are invariable.

Nouns

Though Jukpë does not have grammatical genders per se, however there are eight noun classes which act similarly and are divided semantically, i.e. according to what kind of object the word is.

Class	Prefix (sg)	Prefix (pl)	Example (sg)	Example (pl)	Translation
1. People	m(á)-	n(á)-	máto	náto	person (people)
2. Animals	v(á)-	z(á)-	vábís	zábís	fish
3. Plants	nm(u)-	b(i)-	nmutú	bitú	tree(s)
4. Food	h(ó)-	ch(ú)-	hópót	chúpót	soup(s)
5. Body parts	gb(i)-	kp(é)-	gbijó	kpéjó	eye(s)
6. Groups	j(í)-	t(í)-	jídháta	tídháta	pride(s) of lions
7. Artefacts	gh(i)-	k(é)-	ghizek	kézek	knife (knives)
8. Other	up(u)-	ny(á)-	upuna	nyána	field(s)

The dictionary form of a noun divides the prefix from the rest of the word with a hyphen. For example the word for "lion" would appear in a dictionary as "vá-dháta" but elsewhere it would simply be written "vádháta". Dictionaries also sort by the first letter of the root word, not by the first letter of the prefix, so that "hó-bís" ("fish" [meat]) would appear above "vá-bís" ("fish" [animal]).

The lexical changes caused by the class prefixes can also be shown by using the root word "to":

1. "máto": person, man, human
2. "váto": barbarian, demon, infidel
3. "*nmuto": n/a
4. "hóto": victim
5. "gbito": penis (slang)
6. "jíto": a crowd or group of people, a people or nation, humanity, mankind
7. "ghito": a slave, a serf, a servant, an employee
8. "*uputo": n/a

Adjectives

Classes

Adjectives agree with the noun they describe regarding noun class prefix. For example the base adjective "edhék" ("red"), is shown below:

Class	Singular	Plural
1. People	medhék	nedhék
2. Animals	vedhék	zedhék
3. Plants	nmedhék	bedhék
4. Food	hedhék	chedhék
5. Body parts	gbedhék	kpedhék
6. Groups	jedhék	tedhék
7. Artefacts	ghedhék	kedhék
8. Other	upuedhék	nyedhék

N.B.: The dictionary form an adjective is prefixless.

Comparatives

Comparative constructions using "more" are made by adding the suffix "-kú" to the adjective. For example, "The dog is older [more old] than the bird" is translated as "Vájá vátéjo vábrúnokú vághur".

Constructions using "less" attach the suffix "-do" to the adjective. For example, "The bird is younger [less old] than the bird" is translated as "Vághur vátéjo vábrúnodo vájá".

Constructions conveying equality, i.e. "as... as", place "mí" before the adjective and "mi" after it. For example, "The dog is as young as the bird" is translated as "Vájá vátéjo mí vámáronh mi vághur".

Superlatives

To construct a superlative using "most" the suffix "-kúku" is attached the adjective. For example, "The oldest [most old] dog" is translated as "Vájá vábrúnokúku".

In the same way, superlative constructions using "least" attach the suffix "-doku" to the adjective. For example, "The youngest [least old] bird" is translated as "Vághur vábrúnodoku".

Vocabulary:

• dog: v-ájá
• bird: vá-ghur
• to be: ge-té
• to learn: ke-pár
• old: brúno
• young: máronh

Possessives

Possessive adjectives modify a noun by attributing possession or belonging to someone or something. This corresponds to the English "his" or "your". Just as normal adjectives do possessive adjectives agree with the prefix of noun they describe.

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	ánhu	ámhu
2nd	ónhe	ómhe
3rd (m/n)	éjo	éyo
3rd (f)	úja	úya

Verbs

Jukpë infinitive verbs begin with an infinitive prefix. There are six possible prefixes: "g(e)"-, "k(e)"-, "gh(ó)"-, "kh(ó)"-, "q(u)"- and "h(ú)"-. For example "kepár" means "to learn". This verbal affix system means that unusually Jukpë has no irregular verbs at all. Note that as with nouns verbs have a dictionary form, e.g. "kepár" is written as "ke-pár" in a dictionary.

Conjugations occur by replacing the infinitive prefix with another that agrees with the subject in class and number. Suffixes are added according to person. Infixes are added to further conjugate verbs according to voice, mood, tense and aspect. These infixes are added in the order tense, aspect, mood and then voice.

Affixes

Pronoun

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	-(u)n	-(u)m
2nd	-(e)k	-(e)v
3rd (m/n)	-(ó)jo	-(ó)yo
3rd (f)	-(á)ja	-(á)ya

Tense

1. Present: unmarked
2. Past: -(í)r(í)-
3. Future: -(á)z(á)-

Aspect

1. Imperfective: unmarked
2. Perfective: -(e)m(e)-
3. Habitual: -(a)r(a)-

Mood

1. Indicative: unmarked
2. Conditional: -(a)b(u)-
3. Interrogative: -(u)du(m)-
4. Subjunctive: -(ë)t(ë)-
5. Imperative: -(a)kh(a)-

Voice

1. Active: unmarked
2. Passive: -(d)ú(n)-
3. Causative: -(e)ny(e)-
4. Reflexive: -(s)á(m)-
5. Reciprocal: -(r)ú(g)-

Tense

• The present tense refers to an occurrence which is happening now or to an object that currently exists.
  • "Mápárójo": "He is learning"
• The past tense refers to something that has happened or to an object that no longer exists.
  • "Márípárójo": "He was learning"
• The future tense refers to an event that will happen or to something that will exist.
  • "Mázápárójo": "He will learn"

Aspect

• The imperfective denotes an action or condition that does not have a fixed temporal boundary, but is unfinished, continuous or in progress.
  • "Mápárójo": "He is learning"
  • "Márípárójo": "He was learning"
• The perfective denotes a completed event.
  • "Márímepárójo": "He learnt"
• The habitual is similar to the imperfective, it denotes an action or condition that does not have a fixed temporal boundary, but is habitual or repetitive.
  • "Márapárójo": "He learns"
  • "Márírapárójo": "He was learning"

Mood

• The indicative mood is used in ordinary factual or objective statements.
  • "Mápárójo": "He is learning"
• The conditional mood is used to signify that something is dependant upon the out-come of something else.
  • "Mákipárójo": "He would learn"
• The interrogative mood is used for asking questions.
  • "Mádupárójo?": "Does he learn?"
• The subjunctive mood is used to express an action or state that is hypothetical or anticipated rather than actual, including wishes and commands.
  • "It is necessary that mátëpárójo": "It is necessary that he learn"
• The imperative mood is used to express orders and does not take a class prefix.
  • "Khapárójo": "Learn!"

Voice

• The active voice is used to show that the subject of a verb carries out an action.
  • "Mápárójo": "He is learning"
• The passive voice is used to show that the subject of a transitive verb receives an action.
  • "Mádúnyepárójo": "He is being taught"
• The causative voice is used to show that a subject causes someone or something else to do or become something or causes a change in state.
  • "Mányepárójo": "He is teaching"
• The reflexive voice is used to show that the subject of a verb carries out an action on itself.
  • "Mányesápárójo": "He is teaching himself"
• The reciprocal voice is used to show that the subject(s) of a verb perform an action on each other.
  • "Mányerúpáróyo": "They are teaching each other"

Negatives

Verbs are negated by the use of the negative prefix "ngh(i)"- which is affixed to the very front of the verb. For example, "nghinápárev" means "you [pl] aren't learning" and "nghimányesápárójo" means "he isn't teaching himself".

Copula

The copula in Jukpë makes use of a regular verb ("ge-té") and also of the "conjugation" of pronouns (and sometimes nouns and rarely adjectives). Compare the sentences below:

• Vádháta vátéjo vákpá.
  • The lion is large.

• Vánhojo vádháta vákpá.
  • He is the large lion.

• Vádháta vákpárójo.
  • The lion "larges".

• Márasarán títi mánhun.
  • I think therefore I am.

Vocabulary:

• big, large: kpá
• lion: vá-dháta
• therefore, so, as a result: títi
• to think: hú-sará

Verb serialisation

In Jukpë, rather than sequences of verbs using subordination, as in English, verbs sequences undergo serialisation. Verb serialisation usually means that two conjugated verbs are put together in a sequence in which no verb is subordinated to an other, however this is not exactly the case in Jukpë. Instead of the subordinated verb being in the infinitive it is conjugated yet rather than adding a class prefix and pronoun suffix, the infinitive prefix is kept. If the verb is instead fully conjugated then a different meaning is conveyed. Examples are given below with no object, a direct object and an indirect object. The first example given corresponds to "... in order to..." in English and the second corresponds to "... and...".

No object:

• Jukpë: Márísájo húrítam.
  • IPA: [máɾísád͡ʒò ħúɾítàm]
  • Gloss: He went played [inf].
  • English: He went to play.

• Jukpë: Márísájo márítamójo.
  • IPA: [máɾísád͡ʒò máɾítàmód͡ʒò]
  • Gloss: He went he played.
  • English: He went and played.

Direct object:

• Jukpë: Máríjájo ghité khóríqé.
  • IPA: [máɾíd͡ʒád͡ʒò ɣìté xóɾíʕé]
  • Gloss: He came book took [inf].
  • English: He came to take the book.

• Jukpë: Máríjájo ghité máríqéjo.
  • IPA: [máɾíd͡ʒád͡ʒò ɣìté máɾíʕéd͡ʒò]
  • Gloss: He came book he took.
  • English: He came and took the book.

Indirect object:

• Jukpë: Máríjájo nyhë upudúk qurísá.
  • IPA: [máɾíd͡ʒád͡ʒò ɲ̊ə̥ ùpùdúk ʕùɾísá]
  • Gloss: He came to shop went [inf].
  • English: He came to go to the shop.

• Jukpë: Máríjájo nyhë upudúk márísájo.
  • IPA: [máɾíd͡ʒád͡ʒò ɲ̊ə̥ ùpùdúk máɾísád͡ʒò]
  • Gloss: He came to shop he went.
  • English: He came and went to the shop.

Direct and indirect object:

• Jukpë: Nyhë upudúk máríjájo ghité khóríqé.
  • IPA: [ɲ̊ə̥ ùpùdúk máɾíd͡ʒád͡ʒò ɣìté xóɾíʕé]
  • Gloss: To shop he came book brought [inf].
  • English: He came to the shop to bring the book.

• Jukpë: Nyhë upudúk máríjájo ghité máríqéjo.
  • IPA: [ɲ̊ə̥ ùpùdúk máɾíd͡ʒád͡ʒò ɣìté máɾíʕéd͡ʒò]
  • Gloss: To shop he came book he brought.
  • English: He came to the shop and brought the book.

Vocabulary:

• to go: qu-sá
• to play: hú-tam
• to come: ge-já
• book: ghi-té
• to take, to bring: khó-qé
• to: nyhë
• shop: upu-dúk

Adverbs

Adverbs are formed very simply. An adverbial affix is simply added to the base adjective, "'kí(k)"-. As an example the base adjective meaning "quick" is "haqá" and the adverb "quickly" in Jukpë is "kíhaqá". Adverbs also take relevant class prefixes.

There are however some exceptions to this rule of adverb formation. The prime the adverbial form of "good" (i.e. "well"), as in English, is irregular in Jukpë. In Jukpë "good" is "jékhón" whereas "well" is "kíchëmen".

Pronouns

Personal

Personal pronouns take the appropriate noun class prefixes except for class 1 nouns (people).

Subject (nominative)

Due to the pronouns that are effectively built into conjugated verbs, nominative personal pronouns are rarely if ever used. When employed they are mostly used as emphatic pronouns, somewhat analogous to the French "Moi, je...".

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	nhu	mhu
2nd	nhe	mhe
3rd (m/n)	nho	mho
3rd (f)	nha	mha

Direct object (accusative)

Accusative personal pronouns are used when the pronoun is the direct object of a transitive verb. For example, "I used to teach them" would translate as "Máríranyepárun nyóyo", (literally "I used to cause them to learn").

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	nyun	nyum
2nd	nyek	nyev
3rd (m/n)	nyójo	nyóyo
3rd (f)	nyája	nyáya

Possessive (genitive)

Genitive pronouns are the equivalent of English's "mine", "yours", "his" et cetera.

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	nhuth	mhuth
2nd	nhedh	mhedh
3rd (m/n)	joth	yoth
3rd (f)	jath	yath

Indirect object (dative)

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	unhë	umhë
2nd	enhë	emhë
3rd (m/n)	johë	yohë
3rd (f)	jahë	yahë

Interrogative

Interrogative pronouns are in a questions and correspond to the five English, the five interrogative pronouns "what", "which", "who", "whom" and "whose". In Jukpë interrogative pronouns are used much like in English:

• "ke" ("what")
• "keke" ("which")
• "má-ku" ("who")
• "kudh" ("whose")

These pronouns do vary according to what they refer to. In the cases of "ke" and "keke" they can take any class prefix except class 1 (people) and "kudh" may take any class. If the class required is unknown (for example in the question "What did that?" the class of the noun referred to is unknown or at least unclear) then a class 8 (other) prefix is used.

Since "má-ku" already has a singular prefix attached for class 1 (people), the only prefix variation possible is changing "má-" to "ná-" for pluralisation.

N.B.: The prefix attached to "kudh" refers to the noun who posses the object in question and not to the possessed object.

Relative

In English the main five relative pronouns are "that", "which", "who", "whom" and "whose". Jukpë has three main relative pronouns:

• "tet" ("which"/"that")
• "má-tut" ("who"/"whom"/"that")
• "tuthá" ("those")

Just as with the interrogative pronouns, prefixes can be attached to relative pronouns. "Tet" and "tuthá" obey the same rules as "ke", "keke" and "kudh" whereas "má-tut" obeys the same rules as "má-ku".

Despite the fact that Jukpë has relative pronouns it is more common to use constructions without them informally, especially with animate objects, i.e. people and animals:

• Jukpë: Mánhojo matu ghifránsa mírarapárunójo.
  • IPA: [mán̥òd͡ʒò màtù ɣìfɾánsà míɾàɾàpáɾùnód͡ʒò]
  • Gloss: He person French taught-me
  • English: He is the man who taught me French.

Note the fact that the example sentence does not use the verb "ge-té" ("to be") but rather adds conjugation to the third person pronoun "nho" (see above).

Demonstrative

In English "this", "that", "these", "those" are demonstrative pronouns. They indicate whether they are replacing singular or plural words and give the location of the object. However, where in English there are only two sorts of demonstrative pronouns (i.e. "this"/"these" and "that"/"those") there are five in Jukpë:

• "this-near-to-me-and/or-us"
• "that-near-to-you-but-not-to-me"
• "that-far-from-me-and/or-us"
• "that-far-from-you-but-not-me"
• "that-which-cannot-be-seen-or-no-longer-exists"

Vocabulary

Colour terms

There are twelve basic colour terms in Jukpë. These are shown below:

Colour terms
English	Jukpë
black/dark	gháso
white/light	mheréme
grey	chudó
purple	áraní
sky blue	táke
blue/green (grue)	míqoro
(light) green	gbína
yellow	ngazá
red	edhék
pink	jóyó
light brown/light orange	henyhá
dark brown/dark orange	úhadha

Colour spectrum
File:Jukpë spectrum.png

The word "gbína" is usually only used to denote the colour of something that is naturally a lighter green and when it is used to describe the colour of, for example, a garment it is akin to something like "I have a beautiful green dress". The word "míqoro" can be used for any item, natural or not, but only covers the colour "gbína" when neutrally referring to unnaturally coloured objects.

"Gháso" means black or more broadly dark but can also encompass some darker shades of blue. Likewise, "mheréme" means white or light (i.e. not dark) as well as some very light shades of yellow.