Sandawe

WALS coordinates: 5° S, 35° E

spoken in Tanzania

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Sandawe
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Sandaui
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
    Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants Clicks
    Morphology
    Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
    Nominal Categories
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, obligatory
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Verbal Categories
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    Word Order
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Simple Clauses
    Predicative Possession Conjunctional