Nara language

The Nara (Nera) or Barea (Barya) language is spoken by the Nara people in an area just to the north of Barentu in the Gash-Barka Region of western Eritrea.[2] The language is often confused with Kunama, which is at best only distantly related.

For the languages of Southern Africa and Papua New Guinea, see Naro language and Lala language (Papua New Guinea).
Nara
Native towestern Eritrea
Native speakers
81,000 (2006)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3nrb
Glottolognara1262

The endangerment status of Nara is unclear. According to Glottolog it is not endangered, but according to Tsige Hailemichael, the "...Nara language is in danger of quickly disappearing."[3]

Nara has been classified as Northern Eastern Sudanic by Rilly (2009:2),[4] but Glottolog considers the evidence unpersuasive and classifies Nara as an isolate.[5]

Dialects

There are four Nara dialects according to Rilly (2010:178):[6]

Higir and Mogoreeb are the larger tribes, while Saantoorta and Koyta are smaller tribes (Rilly 2010:178).

References
  1. Nara at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. "Ethnologue report for language code:nrb". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  3. Hailemichael, Tsige (2005-11-05). "Once Upon a Time… in Nara Language". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  4. Rilly, Claude. 2009. From the Yellow Nile to the Blue Nile: The quest for water and the diffusion of Northern East Sudanic languages from the fourth to the first millenia BCE. Paper presented at ECAS 2009 (3rd European Conference on African Studies, Panel 142: African waters - water in Africa, barriers, paths, and resources: their impact on language, literature and history of people) in Leipzig, 4 to 7 June 2009.
  5. https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nara1262
  6. Rilly, Claude. 2010. Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-9042922372
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