Goemai language
PUR:purpose SG:singular DEF:definite ADVZ:adverbializer S:subject (intransitive and transitive) pronoun IDEOPH:ideophone O:object pronoun CONS:consequence clause PAST.REM:remote past DIM:diminutive GEN:genitive INSIDE:inside Goemai (also Ankwe) is an Afro-Asiatic (Chadic, West Chadic A) language spoken in the Great Muri Plains region of Plateau State in central Nigeria, between the Jos Plateau and Benue River.Orthographic oe stands for the mid-central vowel ə, a practice that had been adopted by missionaries working among the Goemai in Shendam during the 1930s, such as Father E.[3] Glottolog categorizes Goemai as a member of the West Chadic A.3, Goemaic, and Goemai-Chakato subfamilies.[2]: 18 Goemai also contains several vowel sounds which are non-phonemic, but occur allophonically, shown enclosed in square brackets in the table.Of note is Goemai's contrast between aspirated and unaspirated fricative sounds, which is rare among languages in general.[2]: 42 Tone can be the only contrastive feature between words in Goemai, as shown in the following minimal pairs: ɓák "here" (adv.)Most commonly, polysyllabic words are of the form CV.CVC, where the first consonant may be subjected to secondary articulation, including prenasalization, labialization, or palatalization.For example, several words relating to people and body parts are marked for number, as are most loanwords from the Hausa language.[2]: 71 Nouns can be differentiated from other parts of speech based on their syntactic role in a sentence, and the types of modifiers they accept.[2]: 279 Affixes are uncommon in Goemai, and those that exist are predominantly prefixes, which must take the form CV, unless they consist of just a lone nasal.[2]: 310 Modifiers such as là=, the diminutive singular, and =hok, the definite determiner, can attach to noun phrases as clitics.The effect of this modification is to emphasize the result of the verb, as in the following example (ideophone in bold): hèn=jààl1SG.S=belchgúlúsIDEOPHhèn=jààl gúlús1SG.S=belch IDEOPH"I belched loudly" [2]: 281 The basic word order of Goemai is strictly subject-verb-object in transitive clauses,[2]: 375 as shown in the following example sentences.In particular, the subject may be omitted entirely if it is third person singular, so long as it is clear which entity is being referenced.