Kadaru (also Kadaro, Kadero, Kaderu, Kodhin, Kodhinniai, Kodoro, Tamya) is a Hill Nubian or Kordofan Nubian language spoken in the northern Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. It is spoken by around 25,000 people in the Jibaal as-Sitta (Mountains of the Six) hills, between Dilling and Delami. Kordofan Nubian is a cluster of dialects also called Ajang Language with names of dialects varying according to specific clans. According to Ajang people, they all belong to one language group and although some sounds and words might have changed with time, they can understand each other quite well. It is closely related to Ghulfan, with which it forms the Kadaru-Ghulfan subgroup of Hill Nubian.
In the Middle Ages Nubian language was used as lingua franca of the Sudan and was used in writing, commerce and by the government. According to Ali Obeid Birema, Kadero should be considered as a diminishing language caused by the influence of Arabic and the ever-decreasing number of speakers.
Dialects
Ethnologue reports that there are six dialects spoken by six clan groups living on six separate hills: Kadaru (Kodur), Kururu (Tagle), Kafir (Ka’e), Kurtala (Ngokra), Dabatna (Kaaral) and Kuldaji (Kendal). The Western form used by the Berko people at Habila (southwest of Jebel Sitta, neighbouring the Ghulfan) may be another dialect or a separate language. Since Kadaru per se is understudied, many articles on Ajang Language use examples from various dialects, based on the fact that these are closely related dialects.
Phonology
Consonants
There are 22 consonants in Kadaru, with voiced and voiceless plosives in five places of articulation. “There is only one fricative /ʃ/ which we assign to the palatal column. There are three alveolar liquids – a lateral, a trill, and a flap – and there are two central approximants.”.
Consonants' distribution
When it comes to the distribution, only 10 consonants were found in all the positions (initial, intervocalic and final). As seen in the table labial dental and velar consonants appear on the initial position only voiceless. The situation changes, however, in the final position where only labial and velar consonants appear, both voiceless. Contrary to Sudanese Arabic, Kadaru-Kurtala labial plosives are voiceless in the final position of the word.
ɪ́p “tail”
ʃap “giraffe”
kɔ́p “lion”
nɔ́p “gold” tɔ́p “earth”
Consonant contrast
Since the language lacks minimal pairs, the following table shows pairs in which the two consonants are in minimal contrast in the syllable in which they occur.
Consonant sequences
Consonant sequences in Kadaru are considered relatively free, even including a sequence of two plosive consonants. The table below shows that the range of consonant sequences in Kadaru is bigger than in, for example, Uncu, a different Ghulfan language closely related to Kadaru.
Vowels
In Kadaru one can identify 10 vowels distinguished by the Advanced Tongue Root dividing them into two 5 element groups.
Vowel contrasts
Vowel distribution
Vowel distribution. Vowels appear unrestricted when it comes to the position of the phoneme in a word. However, vowels from different [ATR] sets do not appear together in a word.
Syllables and prosody
In Kadaru-Kurtala one can find all four basic syllable types: CV, V, VC, CVC.
The four types also combine in longer words, however the language lacks the combination V.V.
Evidence shows a strong presence of long vowels both in word of one open syllable and in longer words. The evidence also suggests tonality in the language. Tagle (Kururu) language also from Jibaal as-Sitta shows more tendency of tonality with three tones: falling, high and low. Due to the lack of sufficient research, one cannot say for sure, but one could assume that Kadaru is also a tonal language, since all Ajang languages are considered tonal languages.
Orthography
Arabic script
Consonants
One of the possible systems of writing Ajang languages is the Arabic script. ALESCO (Arab League Educational Scientific Cultural Organization) offered some solutions to how to write non-Arabic languages in Arabic script. The issue with the Arabic script is the fact that Arabic has thirteen consonants that do not exist in Ajang. Moreover, for six consonants that could be found in Ajang but not in Arabic, ALESCO suggests solutions only to three of them.