Mesqan language

Mesqan
Mesqan
Mäsqan
Native to	Ethiopia
Region	Gurage Zone
Native speakers	200,000 (2007)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic South Semitic Ethiopic South Outer South West Gurage Mesqan; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Unwritten
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mvz
Glottolog	mesq1240

Mesqan (also Mäsqan or Meskan) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Gurage people in the Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. It belongs to the family's Ethiopian Semitic branch.

Phonology

		Labial		Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		plain	lab.	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	plain	lab.	Glottal
Nasal		m	mʷ	n		ɲ
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	(p)		t	t͡ʃ	c	k	kʷ
	voiced	b	bʷ	d	d͡ʒ	ɟ	g	ɡʷ
	ejective	(pʼ)		tʼ	t͡ʃʼ	cʼ	kʼ	kʼʷ
Fricative	voiceless	f	fʷ	s	ʃ	ç	x	xʷ	h
	voiced	(v)		z	ʒ
	ejective			(sʼ)
Rhotic				r
Lateral				l
Approximant						j	w

Sounds /p, pʼ, v, sʼ/ occur in loanwords, mainly from Amharic.
/xʷ/ may also have an allophone of [hʷ].
/b/ may have an allophone of [β] in postvocalic and intervocalic positions.
/n/ may assimilate to [ŋ] when following a velar consonant.^[2]
/k, ɡ/ can also be heard as palatalized [kʲ, ɡʲ] when before front vowels.^[3]^[4]

^ Mesqan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Shafi, Ousman; Meyer, Ronny (2016). Mesqan.
^ Eshetu, Meseret (2012). Tense, aspect and mood in Mesqan. Addis Ababa University. pp. 19–20.
^ Getachew, Alemayehu (2011). Mesqan folktales: A contribution to the documentation of the Mesqan language. Addis Ababa University. pp. 10–11.

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