A Historical Phonology of Central Chadic

"Of all of the African language families, the Chadic languages belonging to the Afroasiatic macrofamily are highly internally diverse due to a long history and various scenarios of language contact. This pioneering study explores the development of the sound systems of the 'Central Chadic' languages, a major branch of the Chadic family. Drawing on and comparing field data from 60 different Central Chadic languages, H. Ekkehard Wolff unpacks the specific phonological principles that underpin the Chadic languages' diverse phonological evolution, arguing that their diversity resultsw from historical processes of 'prosodification' of reconstructable segments of the proto-language. It offers meticulous historical analyses of 64 words from Proto-Central Chadic, into up to 60 individual modern languages, including both consonants and vowels. Particular emphasis is on tracing the deep-rooted origin and impact of palatalization and labialization prosodies within a phonological system that, on its deepest level, recognizes only one vowel phoneme"--