CONTENTS
1 The Sandawe language
1.1 Ethnographic context
1.2 Linguistic context
1.3 Previous research
1.4 The present study
2 Consonants
2.1 Pulmonic and glottalic consonants
2.1.1 Oral stops and affricates
2.1.2 Ejective stops
2.1.3 Nasal stops
2.1.4 Fricatives
2.1.5 Approximants and
R
2.2 Velaric consonants clicks
2.2.1 Aspiration 2.2.2 Voicing
2.2.3 Glottalization 2.2.4 Nasalization
2.2.5 Examples of clicks
3 Vowels
3.1 Oral vowels
3.1.1 Voiced vowels
3.1.2 Voiceless vowels
3.2 Nasal vowels
3.3 Examples of
vowels 4
Tone 4.1
Surface and underlying tone 4.2 Tone
melodies 4.3
Tone patterns in multimorphemic words
4.3.1 Suffixation of morphemes with a high tone pattern 4.3.2 Suffixation of morphemes with a low tone
4.3.3 Suffixation of morphemes with a high falling tone 4.3.4 Suprasegmental suffixes
4.3.5 Reduplications and borrowings
4.4 Phrase and sentence-level tonal phenomena
4.4.1 Noun phrases 4.4.2 Verbs
4.4.3 Intonation
5 Basic syllable structure and interpretation
5.1 CV
5.2 V 5.3 CVC
6 Morphophonology
6.1 Vowel-initial suffixes
6.2 Consonant-initial suffixes
7 Orthography
Appendix A: Word-initial consonants Appendix B: Word-medial consonants
Appendix C: Vowels Appendix D: Surface and underlying tonal patterns
Appendix E: Tonal melodies Appendix F Abbreviations
References
1 The Sandawe
language
1.1 Ethnographic context
The Sandawe people live north of Dodoma in the Kondoa District of central Tanzania. The area populated by the Sandawe is about 50 km in diameter from north to south and from east to
west. In addition, a relatively large group of Sandawe lives on the outskirts of Arusha. We estimate that there are approximately 40,000 Sandawe. A figure of between 70,000 and
90,000 has also been suggested Wright et al. 1995:1. Significant numbers of people from other ethnic groups also live in the area of the Kondoa District populated by the Sandawe. The
main groups represented are the Nyaturu, Rangi, Gogo, Maasai, and Datooga. Interaction often takes place between the Sandawe and the other ethnic groups living among
them, though conversation is normally carried out in Swahili. Some people from other ethnic backgrounds report being able to understand Sandawe, but the language is rarely spoken by
non-Sandawe. Intermarriage between the Alagwa, a Cushitic group and the Sandawe in the past led to the incorporation of a part of the Alagwa into the Sandawe ethnic group ten Raa
1986. The Sandawe-speaking Alagwa are considered to be a clan of the Sandawe. The remaining Alagwa continue to speak their own language.
1.2 Linguistic context