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Tadaksahak phonology

Vowels, consonants and how they are pronounced.

Vowels

SpellingRealisations
a[æ] [æː] [a] [aː] [ɐ] [ɑ]
e[e] [ɛ] [ɛː]
i[i] [iː] [ɪ] [e]
o[o] [oː] [ɔ] [ɔː]
u[u] [uː]
ǝ[ə] [ʌ]

Consonants

Inventory confirmed by the PHOIBLE database (inventory no. 1372, CC BY-SA licence), which also distinguishes long vowels (aː, eː, iː, oː, uː) and long (geminate) versions of almost every consonant (bː, dː, kː…). phoible.org ↗

Syllable structure

Open syllables: CV and CVV. Closed syllables: CVC and CVCC. A vowel can begin a word, as in íiləs “tongue” or ákrar “ram”.

Doubly closed syllables occur only at the end of a word and always end with the feminine suffix -t, as in tadábert “pigeon”. Long vowels occur only in open syllables that do not end the word.

Source : Ag Abdoussalam, M., Structure grammaticale d’un parler berbéro-songhay du nord-est malien (tadaksahak)

Consonants and minimal pairs

The language has 32 consonants. The whole alveolar series also exists in a pharyngealised form, marked by a dot under the letter: ṭ, ḍ, ṣ, ẓ, ḷ, ṛ, ṇ.

Some minimal pairs: báy “to know” / máy “to own”; bér “big” / fér “to untie”; éedag “place” / éeḍag “grass”.

Source : Ag Abdoussalam, M., Structure grammaticale d’un parler berbéro-songhay du nord-est malien (tadaksahak)

Regional variation

In Tamalet, the palatal stops c and j merge with the fricatives ʃ and ʒ, and the feminine plural prefix t-ǝ- is pronounced [ʃi-].

Pharyngealisation is much weaker in the southern varieties (Infukaraytan) than in the northern ones (Talatayt). The clan of the former traditional chief from Talatayt, now settled in Tamanrasset, is the most conservative; the groups around Ménaka are the most innovative.

Source : Ag Abdoussalam, M., Structure grammaticale d’un parler berbéro-songhay du nord-est malien (tadaksahak)

Comparison with Tuareg (Tawillimidt)

The Tadaksahak vowel system (i, u, e, ə, o, a) is close to that of Tawillimidt, the Tuareg variety of the Iwillimidan of Ménaka; the Tuareg vowel [ǎ] is not attested.

The consonants ṇ and ṛ exist only in Tadaksahak, and where Tuareg uses x, Tadaksahak prefers ħ, which the authors link to the influence of Arabic. The emphatic consonants, absent from Southern Songhay, reflect the influence of Tuareg.

Source : Ag Agouzoum, A., Hamadou, A. K. et Ag Abdoussalam, M., Éléments linguistiques du berbère sud et du songhoy septentrional

Phonology in the works

Passages from the site’s works on this topic, with the page cited: the original text is authoritative.