Masalit (autonym Masala/Masara, ) is a language spoken by the Masalit people in western Darfur, Sudan. Masalit, known as the Massalat moved west into central-eastern Chad. Their ethnic population in Chad was as of the 1993 census, but only 10 speakers of their language were reported in 1991. Phonology Vowels Consonants It has been stated that occasional click sounds [ǀ] and [ǃ] may occur, however; they are considered to be rare. Sounds /r, l, m, k/ can occur as geminated [rː, lː, mː, kː]. Sounds /t, m, n, ŋ/ can occur as palatalized [tʲ, mʲ, nʲ, ŋʲ] before front vowels. /z, x/ only occur as a result of words of Arabic origin. [ʔ] is not a phonemic sound, and is only heard before word-initial vowels. Sounds /p, ɥ, v/ only occur in word-initial position. Sociolects The Masalit language has two sociolects: "Heavy" Masalit, spoken by higher-ranking people and those in the countryside, with a complicated agglutinative grammar "Light" Masalit, spoken particularly in the home and in the market, with a somewhat simplified grammatical structure and many borrowings from Sudanese Arabic, the regional lingua franca and language of education. References External links The Lost Languages, Found in New York - NYTimes.com Further reading Edgar, J. (1990). Masalit stories. African Languages and Cultures, 3(2), 127-148. Jakobi, A. (1991). Au Masali Grammar: With Notes on Other Languages of Darfur and Wadai. Anthropos, 86(4-6), 599-601. Agglutinative languages Maban languages Languages of Sudan Languages of Chad