Introduction to the Temein languages

Abstract

The Temein cluster consists of three languages spoken in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan, north of Kadugli. Little has been published on these languages, but Roland Stevenson elicited substantial lexical data during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly from Khartoum-based informants. This paper is based primarily on Stevenson's material, i.e., lists of almost 600 words for each of the three Temein varieties. Additional information is taken from Yip (2004), which appears to be the only publication dealing specifically with one of the Temein languages. All data in this paper is from Stevenson's wordlists unless explicitly stated otherwise.