Mabire
Classification: Afro-Asiatic
·critically endangered
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Critically endangered
100 percent certain, based on the evidence available
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~5
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0
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0
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0
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~5
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"The existence of Mabire was first mentioned to Dr. James Roberts (SIL) during an interview he had in 1993 with some Kofa men in the town of Mongo in central Chad. Additional information collected in January 2001 by SIL's language survey team (consisting of Eric Johnson, Noelle Hutchinson, Susanne Malander, and Calvain Mberjodji) confirms its existence as a distinct and endangered language. Mabire is now only spoken by a few older people, in the Guera province of Chad (Bidiyo canton, Mongo-Rural subprefecture). Word list comparison results show a relatively close lexical simliarity to the Jegu dialect of Mogum, though not close enough to suspect intercomprehension. The Mabire-speaking community appears to have disbanded following a devastating epidemic, and the survivors have been
assimilated into neighboring speech communities. Word list."
- DATE OF INFO
- 2002
- DOMAINS OF USE
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- SPEAKER NUMBER TRENDS
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- TRANSMISSION
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- MORE ON VITALITY
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Only older people speak it.
- OTHER LANGUAGES USED BY THE COMMUNITY
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Kofa
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Chadian Arabic
- LOCATION DESCRIPTION
"Probably within the last fifty years, the Mabire were all together in four large villages near Mount Mabire. Their villages were named Amdjaména, Arga, Mambire (which later divided into Antéréné and Berouet), and Milaal. Moussa Duwane, the Mabire interviewed in Mongo, claims that Arga and Milaal did not speak the Mabire language, rather they spoke Bidiyo-Tounkoul and Chadian Arabic but were united to the other Mabire villages by the canton chief. According to Terab and Balha, the ancestors of the Mabire came from a village named Mabir, which they said was “7 km west of Baro” (Dadjo II canton, Mangalmé subprefecture). The map prepared by Chad's Bureau Central de Recensement shows a village around seven km northwest of Baro, named Mabar, which the Migaama people consider to be the original Migaama village and is currently entirely peopled by Migaama speakers (William Chesley, personal communication)."