Tera language

Tera is a Chadic dialect cluster spoken in north-eastern Nigeria in the north and eastern parts of Gombe State and Borno State. Blench (2006) believes Pidlimdi (Hinna) dialect is a separate language.

Varieties

Blench lists these language varieties as part of the Tera language cluster.

• Nyimatli
• Pidlimdi
• Bura Kokura

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial				Alveolar				Post-al. /Palatal		Velar				Glottal
		plain		palatal.		central		lateral				plain		labial.
Nasal			Template:IPAlink		Template:IPA link		Template:IPAlink				Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Stop1	plain	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink2	Template:IPAlink2			Template:IPAlink2	Template:IPAlink2	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	prenasal.		Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	implosive		Template:IPAlink		Template:IPA link		Template:IPAlink						Template:IPAlink
Fricative		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPAlink3
Approximant	plain								Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink				Template:IPAlink
	glottal.										Template:IPA link4
Trill							Template:IPAlink

^1 Voiceless plosives are lightly aspirated but unreleased before another consonant.

^2 and formally had and respectively as allophones but the two pairs have split; however, the alveolar plosives never precede front vowels and the postalveolar affricates rarely precede anything but front vowels.

^3 is a relatively new phoneme, appearing in loanwords from English and Hausa.

^4 derives from a that has lost its alveolar contact while retaining the palatal and glottal action.

File:Tera monophthongs chart.svg

Monophthongs of Tera, from Template:Harvcoltxt

File:Tera diphthongs chart.svg

Diphthongs of Tera, from Template:Harvcoltxt

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Open		Template:IPA link Template:IPA link

• The mid vowels are true-mid .
• The open vowels are central .

Vowel length contrasts are neutralized in monosyllabic words with no coda consonants.

All vowels but and are more open in closed syllables such as in ('to plait') and ('to cook soup'). and tend to be fronted to when following palatalized consonants.

Diphthongs, which have the same length as long vowels, consist of a non-high vowel and a high vowel:

Diphthong	Example	Orthography	Gloss
		ɓeu	'sour'
		woi	'child'
		ghai	'town'
		dlau	'sickle'

• Phonetically, these diphthongs are .

Tone

Tera is a tonal language, distinguishing high, mid and low tone. Tone is not indicated orthographically since no minimal trios exist; minimal pairs can be distinguished by context.

Orthography

The first publication in Tera was Labar Mbarkandu nu Yohanna Bula Ki, a translation of the Gospel of John, which established an orthographic system. In 2004, this orthographic system was revised.