| Nizaa | |
| Nativename: | Nízɑɑ̀ |
| States: | Cameroon |
| Region: | Adamawa Region |
| Speakers: | 10,000 |
| Date: | 1985 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Northern Bantoid? |
| Fam7: | Mambiloid |
| Iso3: | sgi |
| Glotto: | suga1248 |
| Glottorefname: | Nizaa |
| Also Known As: | Galim, Nyamnyam, Suga |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /[nɪ˦zʌː˧˨]/ |
| Script: | Latin |
Nizaa (pronounced as /sgi/,[1] sgi|Nízɑɑ̀|label=practical orthography|italic=yes), also known as Galim, Nyamnyam, and Suga, is an endangered Mambiloid language spoken in the Adamawa Region of northern Cameroon. Most of the language's speakers live in and around the village of Galim in the department of Faro-et-Déo.
Nizaa has a complex sound system with 60 consonant phonemes, eleven tones, and a contrast between oral and nasal vowels. It is neither a head-initial nor head-final language (the head or main element of a clause does not prefer to come before or after its modifiers) and uses postpositions instead of prepositions (the adposition follows the noun it modifies).
Nizaa was first extensively documented in the 1980s by Norwegian linguists and Bjørghild Kjelsvik. The language is endangered, but the exact number of active speakers is unknown since the last census of speakers took place in 1985.
Nizaa is also referred to as Suga (also spelled Ssuga), Galim, Nyamnyam (also spelled Nyemnyem, Njemnjem, and Jemjem),[2] [3] "Sewe" and "Mengaka". Nizaa is the word the Nizaa call themselves, while Suga comes from Pero súgò 'stranger' or 'not Pero'.[3] 'Nyamnyam' is a pejorative term likely derived from the Fula word Fulah: nyaamnyaamjo 'cannibal', which may also mean 'sorcerer', though there is no evidence the Nizaa have ever practised cannibalism or sorcery.[4] The name Galim comes from the main town of the Nizaa of the same name.[3] [5] Nizaa is referred to as "Mengaka" in the 1988 version of Ethnologue,[6] but Endresen in 1991 did not recognise the name or know where it came from.[1] "Sewe" may also be another alternate name for the language.
Nizaa is primarily spoken in and around the village of Galim, located in Faro-et-Déo, in the Adamawa Region of northern Cameroon; the village has roughly 2,000 inhabitants. The most recent census of speakers was carried out in 1985 and reported 10,000 people actively speaking the language. However, the French: [[Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun]] (ALCAM) estimated only 2,000 speakers in 1983, so the actual number of speakers is unknown.[7] The language is considered endangered.[8]
Most Nizaa are not literate, and the few who are often only can read and write Fula in the Ajami Arabic script.[9] The romanisation of Nizaa has not been widely adopted by the Nizaa people because of their low literacy rate. Several other languages are spoken in the region, and most Nizaa speakers are bilingual in Fula, specifically the Adamawa dialect, since it is essentially the lingua franca of northern Cameroon. Many also know Hausa, another regional language, or French, because it is an official language of Cameroon.[10]
The Nizaa are divided into clans, each with its own sacred animal which they do not eat or harm; traditionally, it is thought that these animals helped a clan overcome a stressful situation in the mythological past.[11]
The Nizaa are primarily farmers. They used to grow finger millet and sorghum as their main crops, with grass (Tephrosia vogelii) being planted after harvest. Tephrosia vogelii is often used to replenish nitrogen in the soil and kill pests, as the plant contains rotenoids, which are a natural pesticide.[12] [13] However, Fula pastoralists practiced transhumance, or moving cattle into river valleys and farmlands during the dry season to find grass and water. Because millet matures late, Fula cattle herds had already started migrating through the fields, and they would eat or trample both the millet and grass. As a result, the Nizaa switched to primarily growing maize in the 1950s and 1960s, which has a growth cycle of only four months. The Nizaa also grow other crops such as yams, peanuts, and cassava, and their main food is a paste made from cooked flour, sorghum, millet, or cassava. Hunting and fishing are also regular food sources among the Nizaa, with beekeeping and ironsmithing being used as sources of income by some communities.
The Nizaa believe that they came from Bibemi, a town in the North Region of Cameroon. A people called the "Nyam-nyam", who spoke the Nimbari language, lived in this region in this time, but were completely assimilated by the Fula by the beginning of the twentieth century. It is not clear whether these people were related to the Nizaa, because the pejorative was applied by Islamised peoples to numerous groups who practiced traditional religions. The Nizaa believe that they moved to Galim around 1765, under their first chief Túkúm Ríìcùn; this belief is central to their cultural identity and pride, as they view their current homeland as earned through effort and resilience. In the early 19th century, Usman dan Fodio launched a jihad with the goal of eliminating pagan elements from Islam and spreading Islam in West Africa. As a result, the Sokoto Caliphate was founded. From the 1830s to 1850s, Fodio's disciple, Modibo Adama, led the Fula expansion into Adamawa, establishing the Adamawa Emirate with Yola as its capital and creating over 40 lamidates (small Fula sub-emirates). The Adamawa Emirate was part of the Sokoto Caliphate, which at this point was a loose confederation of multiple different emirates across West and Central Africa.[14] The expansion introduced Islam as a mark of legitimacy for rulers, encouraged Fula as a lingua franca, and brought slave raids and economic exploitation of non-Muslim groups. The Nizaa reacted to this expansion by fortifying themselves on the Jim Mountain near Galim. In 1856 and 1865, the Fula ruler of the Lamidate of Tibati tried to conquer the fortified Nizaa town twice, but failed both times, as the settlement was hard to attack with cavalry. For the next 30 years, each ruler of the Lamidate of Tibati tried to conquer the Nizaa, but all of their attempts were repulsed. The Nizaa then became a constant threat to the surrounding groups, looting trade caravans and stealing cattle of the nomadic Jafun Fula for meat.
In 1902, the Germans, who had gained control of Cameroon during the Scramble for Africa, decided to discourage further disruption by the Nizaa by burning the fortified village on Jim Mountain. However, the Nizaa hid in caves in the mountain and continued to resist the Germans. In 1906, a party of Nizaa killed several German troops and stole their firearms. In retaliation, the Germans, with the help of several Fula lamidates, including the Lamidate of Tibati, used artillery strikes, sieges, and famine to subdue the Nizaa, who continued to fight back with guerilla warfare under chief Njomna. This conflict went on until 1915, when French and British forces took over Cameroon in World War I, essentially saving the Nizaa from annihilation. After 1915, the French pacified the region by stopping the continuous conflict between the Lamidate of Tibati and the Nizaa, who left their settlement on Jim Mountain and moved back to Galim. Over time, the Nizaa became more integrated into the French colonial administration, though they kept their traditional chieftaincy, and Islam began to slowly spread among the Nizaa, as it was tied to being a legitimate political ruler. A more active process of Islamisation began after 1956 under chief Mohammadou Diallo Hamadina, and traditional religious practices have steadily declined ever since.
Today, most Nizaa practise Islam, though some do practise Christianity or a traditional religion that incorporates ancestor worship and animism.
Several details of Nizaa were known as early as 1932, but the language was first documented extensively from 1979 to 1984 by Norwegian linguist at the University of Oslo. However, his research was not published until 1991. Theil devised the romanisation system of Nizaa and published the first analysis of the language,[11] and he also supervised later research on Nizaa by his student, Bjørghild Kjelsvik. Kjelsvik began her work in the Nizaa community via the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon, which documented local languages in addition to engaging in evangelical conversion work.
Furthermore, because another language exists in Adamawa Region also called "Nyamnyam", linguists have often confused the two languages, and the exact classification of Nizaa is still in doubt. However, in 1983, ALCAM classified Nizaa and Kwanja as Mambiloid languages. Finally, Roger Blench in 1988 classified the Mambiloid languages, along with another language family in Nigeria's Adamawa State, the Dakoid languages, as members of the Northern Bantoid languages, which are a subdivision of the Bantoid language family.
However, another linguist, Bruce Connell, disagreed with this classification. In 1997, he suggested that the Mambiloid languages form a valid phylogenetic group (or the languages are each others' closest relatives), but also noted that Nizaa and Ndoro are highly divergent and can only be tenatively considered members of the Mambiloid languages. He also suggested that lexical and grammatical similarities within the Mambiloid languages are partly due to contact, not just shared ancestry, and that evidence of a phylogenetic relationship between the Mambiloid languages and the Dakoid languages is weak. Connell also suggested that the Mambiloid languages may either belong within the South Bantoid languages or may branch off independently from the Bantoid languages, separate from both the Dakoid languages and the South Bantoid languages.[15] [16]
The Nizaa language has a contrast between oral and nasal vowels, with five short oral vowels, ten long oral vowels, and seven long nasal vowels.[1] In Endresen's original romanisation, nasalised vowels were indicated by adding an ogonek, but Kjelsvik's revised romanisation indicates such vowels by adding (ŋ) after the vowel.[1]
Older speakers of Nizaa also distinguish an eighth nasalised vowel pronounced as //ɤ̃ː// from pronounced as //ʌ̃ː//, but this distinction has been lost in younger speakers.
Each of the five short oral vowels except /a/ can be pronounced in two different ways, depending on the context. These different pronunciations are called allophones, but they represent the same underlying vowel phoneme. Each allophone is part of one to two of three sets: the back set pronounced as /[ɯ, ʊ, ɤ, o]/, used when a vowel comes before pronounced as //ɾ, g, ɰ̃//, except if the vowel follows pronounced as //tʃ, dʒ, ᶮdʒ, ɲ, j, ʃ// (e.g., 'broom' is pronounced pronounced as /[sɤɾ˨]/ while 'poverty' is pronounced pronounced as /[tʃɯɾ˧]/); the front set pronounced as /[ɪ, ʏ, e, ø]/, used when a vowel follows pronounced as //tʃ, dʒ, ᶮdʒ, ɲ, j, ʃ// and is before pronounced as //n// (e.g., 'wasp nest' is pronounced pronounced as /[tʃøn˨]/); and the "normal" set pronounced as /[ɪ, ʊ, e, o]/, used everywhere else (e.g., 'to fall' is pronounced pronounced as /[tʃɪ˧]/).
| Nizaa vowels | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short oral vowels | Long oral vowels | Long nasal vowels | |||||||||
| Unrounded | Rounded | Front | Central | Back | Front | Central | Back | ||||
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | ||||||||
| Close | pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Close-mid | pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
Nizaa has complex consonantal inventory with 60 consonants, including five marginal phonemes, which occur infrequently in the language. In Nizaa, there are six main types of consonants: labial consonants, or consonants made with one or both lips; alveolar consonants, articulated with the tongue touching the alveolar ridge; post-alveolar consonants, articulated with the tongue behind the alveolar ridge; velar consonants, articulated with the tongue against the velum (the back part of the roof of the mouth); glottal consonants, articulated with the glottis (or the opening between the vocal folds); and labial–velar consonants, which are simultaneously articulated at the lips and velum.[17]
Nizaa also has prenasalised consonants, which refer to sequences of nasal and non-nasal consonants that act like a single consonant, and implosive consonants, which refer to consonants articulated by both moving the glottis downward and expelling air from the lungs. Both types of consonants are common in the languages of Sub-Saharan Africa.[18] [19]
The consonants in parentheses are marginal: the labial flap is only found in ideophones or words that evoke a certain sound, and the voiced velar fricative is only found between vowels to distinguish compounds from disyllabic words. The two glottal stops are also marginal and are not written in the modern orthography, although Endresen's old orthography used an apostrophe and an apostrophe followed by 'w' to represent pronounced as //ʔ// and pronounced as //ʔʷ// respectively. They are only found in interjections (e.g., pronounced as //ʔɯɰ̃˦ʔɯɰ̃˨// 'no'), loanwords from Arabic (e.g., Nizaa pronounced as //ʔa˧lad˧// 'Sunday', from pronounced as //alʔaħad//, loaned via Fula pronounced as //ʔalat//), and variants of the third-person plural pronouns (e.g., pronounced as /[ʔʷaː˦]/ 'they', when combined with a to-be or auxiliary verb). pronounced as //x// is only distinguished from pronounced as //h// in one word root, and consequently, shares the same letter as pronounced as //h// in the orthography.
When before the rounded vowels pronounced as //ʊ ~ ʏ, o ~ ø, uː, oː, ɔː, ũː, ɔ̃ː//, the consonants pronounced as //p, b, ᵐb, f, v, ᶬv, k͡p, ɡ͡b, ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡b, h// become labialised pronounced as /[pʷ, bʷ, ᵐbʷ, fʷ, vʷ, ᶬvʷ, k͡pʷ, ɡ͡bʷ, ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡bʷ, hʷ]/ (e.g., 'candy', from French, is pronounced pronounced as /[ᵐbʷo˧ᵐbʷoː˦]/).
The distinction between pronounced as //s// and pronounced as //ʃ//, and between pronounced as //sʷ// and pronounced as //ʃʷ// is uncertain. Minimal pairs, or pairs of words that differ in only one sound, do exist between these sounds (e.g., 'to cross' and 'to tremble'), but in many words, both pronounced as //s(ʷ)// and pronounced as //ʃ(ʷ)// can be used interchangeably without changing meaning (e.g., and both mean 'god').
| Nizaa consonants | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Velar | Labial–velar | Glottal | ||||||||
| plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | ||||
| Plosive/Affricate | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | (pronounced as /link/) | ||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| prenasalised | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| implosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| prenasalised implosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Approximant | voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| nasalised | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | |||||||||
| prenasalised | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||||
| Tap or Flap | (pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||||
Nizaa has three allowed syllable types: CV (e.g., 'to go'), CVV (e.g., 'house'), and CVC, (e.g., 'medicine') where C represents a consonant, V a short vowel, and VV a long vowel (which may be nasalised or not). The syllable structure V (a single short vowel) exists only in the particle a, which has various meanings based on the tone used; these include the copula or "to-be verb" á, which takes a high tone. CV and V syllables are monomoraic, while CVV and CVC syllables are bimoraic and take twice the amount of time as monomoraic syllables to fully articulate. Monosyllabic nouns can only have the syllable structures CVV and CVC, while monosyllabic verbs can have all allowed syllable structures (CV, CVV, CVC).
Nizaa only permits certain consonants to act as codas, or consonants that end a syllable; these are pronounced as //p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, ɰ̃, w, w̃, j, ɾ//. The consonants /d/ and /j/ are fairly marginal as codas, with pronounced as //d// only being found in loanwords from Fula and Arabic (e.g., 'everything, all' from Fula), and in some indigenous words (e.g., 'Rüppel's vulture'). pronounced as //j// is only found in the word, the imperative form (used for commands) of the verb 'to see or perceive', and in interjections and ideophones (e.g., 'no') in all dialects of Nizaa. However, in the Galim dialect of Nizaa, pronounced as //j// as a coda is found in more words and is not marginal (e.g., 'flour made of roasted corn and peanuts' in the Galim dialect is in other dialects, and 'a taboo or forbidden word' in the Galim dialect is in other dialects). In 1991, Endresen also listed another marginal coda pronounced as //j̃//, but Kjelsvik, in 2002, re-analysed the only word it was known to occur in as pronounced as //jĩː//.
Nizaa is a tonal language. Tonal languages use shifts in the pitch of syllables to differentiate words from each other, independently from pragmatic considerations. Such languages are common across Sub-Saharan Africa.[20]
Nizaa has three phonemic tone levels: high, mid, and low, as well as a number of two- and three-tone tone contours (combinations of tones within a syllable), which are indicated in the orthography using a variety of diacritical marks. Verb roots can only use the high or mid tones, unlike nouns, which may use any of the three levels. Tones regularly participate in grammatical processes.
| Representation of tones in the orthography | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tone | Chao tone letter | CV | CVV | CVC | |
| H / H° / ꜜH | ˦ | tá | táá | tám | |
| M / M° | ˧ | ta | taa | tam | |
| L / L° | ˨ | tà | tàà | tàm | |
| LH | ˨˦ | tǎ | tàá | tǎm | |
| HM | ˦˧ | ta᷇ | táa | ta᷇m | |
| HL | ˦˨ | tâ | táà | tâm | |
| MH | ˧˦ | ta᷄ | taá | ta᷄m | |
| ML | ˧˨ | ta᷆ | taà | ta᷆m | |
| LHM | ˨˦˧ | tǎˉ | tǎa | tǎm̄ | |
| LHL | ˨˦˨ | ta᷈ | tǎà | tǎm̀ | |
| MHL | ˧˦˨ | ta | ta᷄à | ta᷄m̀ | |
Endresen groups the tones into "primary tones" and "secondary tones". The primary tones, high (H), mid (M), low (L), and rising (LH), are found on all types of syllables (CV, CVV, and CVC). The "secondary tones", which include falling (HM, HL, and ML), rising (MH) and peaking (LHM) tones, are found on word-final syllables and can be understood as one of the primary tones plus an additional tone, though MH and ML tones can be found on non-final syllables in the augumentative and diminutive forms of words. Kjelsvik, in 2002, recognised two more peaking tones, MHL and LHL.
Nizaa has floating high tones, which are high tones that are not attached to a specific syllable and are written with a small circle (°), e.g., M° or L°. Before a pause, floating tones are not realised, so oppositions such as M versus M° or L versus L° are neutralised (e.g., 'boy/girl', with a tone of M, and, with a tone of M° are articulated with the same tone). However, before another word, floating tones surface as a high tone on the preceding syllable (e.g., 'one boy/girl' retains its mid tone, while in 'one head', is a rising tone MH). As a result, floating tones expand the inventory of possible tonal realisations by combining with other tones, although some combinations of tones collapse and merge with other tone combinations.
A tone at the end of a syllable can shift to the following syllable. When the shifted tone is mid and the following syllable also carries mid tone, there is no change (e.g., when words 'egg' and 'one' are placed one after the other, the mid tone in LHM tone sequence of merges with the mid tone in, creating the sequence). However, when the shifted tone is high, the shift is audible (e.g., when 'elephant', which has a L° tone, is before the word 'two', the floating high tone moves, creating the sequence 'two elephants'). Tone shift also interacts with suffixation: when a final L is added to mark the definite form of a noun (e.g., 'the house' versus 'house'), some peaking tones (e.g., MHM) simplify to LHM.
Nizaa also exhibits downstep (ꜜH), which is a high tone realised lower than the preceding high tone but higher than a mid tone. Downstep arises when a sequence like MH is reinterpreted as ꜜH after tone shift (e.g., in the word 'large dog', the augmentative of 'dog', the mid tone in the falling HM tone shifts to the following suffix and this MH sequence becomes a downstep ꜜH).
In some types of suffixes, including some irregular noun plurals, the root vowel lowers to pronounced as //a// in Nizaa.[1] Coda consonants in word-final syllables change in the imperfective aspect: syllables ending in pronounced as //b// instead end with pronounced as //w//; syllables ending in pronounced as //w̃// end with pronounced as //m//; syllables ending in pronounced as //n// nasalise the preceding vowel; syllables ending in pronounced as //g// end in a high tone and raise the vowel (i.e. pronounced as //a// to pronounced as //ʌ́//); and syllables ending in nasal vowels raise and lengthen the preceding vowel. However, when the coda augmentative suffix is appended to a word with a weakened final consonant, the final consonant fortifies back to its "strong" form.
Nizaa generally uses subject–verb–object (SVO) word order and is neither strongly head-initial nor strongly head-final[21] (in the English phrase eat an apple, the verb and head of the verb phrase eat precedes its complements, making English head-initial).[22] In noun phrases, some nouns are head-initial while others are head-final. Relative clauses carry no overt grammatical marking and are head-initial, because they follow the noun they modify. The language primarily uses postpositions which follow their object, which is another head-initial aspect of the language. However, there is evidence of at least one preposition (the comitative, which denotes accompaniment). The possessor always precedes the possessee and most adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals also precede the noun they modify, head-final aspects of the language. Kjelsvik lists the following examples of Nizaa noun constructions in her 2002 thesis:
Possessive phrase:Noun and adjective:Noun and demonstrative:Compound noun
Prepositional phrase (comitative):Postpositional phrase:Locative
Definiteness on nouns is marked by adding a lowering tone contour. The marking for plurals depends on the animacy of the noun: when the noun is animate, i.e. refers to a human or an animal, the suffix -wu is added, and when the noun is inanimate, another suffix -ya is added. The word ɓaara 'two' may also be used to represent plurality. No case-marking exists in Nizaa, with the possible exception of the locative, which marks location, although this may be a clitic instead because it may behave more like a word-like element that cannot stand on its own in speech and must attach to a neighbouring word for pronunciation.[1] Kjelsvik lists the following examples of noun morphology (forms of nouns):
| Singular (e.g 'a house') | Singular definite (e.g., 'the house') | Plural (e.g., 'houses') | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular nouns | |||
| Irregular nouns | |||
Pronouns have three forms: their isolated versions, the versions when combined with the copula á and their versions in context (i.e. in a sentence with a finite noun). Some pronouns in Nizaa have different honorific forms to show respect, different logophoric forms to refer to someone speaking or being spoken about, or different vocative forms to address someone directly. Pronouns have singular and plural forms. The third-person plural pronoun in context has three forms, the older form, a newer form (pronounced with an initial glottal stop, pronounced as /[ʔʊ˧]/), and a long form . The third person plural pronoun form with copula two forms as well: the older form, and a newer form with a glottal stop pronounced as /[ʔʷaː˦]/. Kjelsvik lists the following examples of pronouns:
| Isolated form | Form with copula | Context form | Vocative | Honorific | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | 1st | N/A | N/A | |||
| 2nd | ||||||
| 3rd | ||||||
| Logophoric | N/A | N/A | ||||
| Plural | 1st | |||||
| 2nd | ||||||
| 3rd | N/A | |||||
| Logophoric | N/A | N/A | ||||
Nizaa verb roots are monosyllabic, and always have a mid or high tone, but extra elements can be added to change the original meaning of the verb or for grammatical purposes. These suffixes include a "habitual/imperfective", signifying a repeated action; a "perfective/stative" , signifying a completed action or a current state of being; and two additional perfect tenses. Progressive (indicating an ongoing action) and imperative (indicating a demand, marked with a low tone) suffixes also exist, as well as suffixes negating the original verb. There is also a "detransitivizer" suffix,, that demotes the direct object of a verb to an oblique argument or removes it altogether. Many suffixes, like the imperative, have negative counterparts. For example, the perfective/stative's negative counterpart is .
In addition to these verb tense suffixes, Kjelsvik also describes several verb number indicators and a variety of suffixes indicating location. For example, four directional suffixes, which serve to identify the path of motion verbs, have been described by Kjelsvik. These are the illative -a, which indicates "motion into an enclosure"; the allative -ri, indicating "motion towards a location"; the distinctive -wa, indicating "motion away from a location"; and the sublative suffix -sa, indicating "motion towards a lower location".
Nizaa permits strings of verbal suffixes.[23] A stacking of up to three suffixes to a single verb is grammatical in Nizaa, and up to four verbs may occur in one sentence in Nizaa. Kjelsvik lists the following examples of Nizaa verb constructions:
The Nizaa language has an Iroquois kinship system; that is, it uses the same word for both mothers and maternal aunts, and the same word for both fathers and paternal uncles. However, it has different words for maternal uncles and paternal aunts, distinguishing them from the other relatives. The Nizaa language does not distinguish maternal and paternal grandparents either. Separate terms exist for older sisters and brothers, but there is no distinction of sex for younger siblings. The terms for 'older sister' díí and 'older brother' daà are also used as generic terms for polite address, while addressing someone as a 'younger sibling' na᷇m is seen as disrespectful regardless of gender. The words for cousins are the same as the ones for siblings and also depend on age. A generic term for in-laws, jwììŋ, also exists.
Kjelsvik gives a sample sentence in Nizaa:
no:Rolf Theil
. 1 January 1991 . Diachronic Aspects of the Phonology of Nizaa . Journal of African Languages and Linguistics . en . 12 . 2 . 171–194 . 10.1515/jall.1991.12.2.171 . 1613-3811. subscription .no:Rolf Theil
. 30 June 1992 . La phonologie de la langue nizaa (nizaà) . The phonology of the Nizaa language . Nordic Journal of African Studies . fr . Nordic Africa Research Network . 1 . 1 . 28–52 . 10.53228/njas.v1i1.57 . 16 May 2025 . 28–29.