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Bench (''Bencnon'', Shenon or Mernon, formerly called Gimira 〔Rapold 2006〕) is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people (in 1998) in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira. It has three varieties: Benchnon, Shenon, and Mernon, which Blench (2006) considers to be distinct languages but which Rapold (2006) states are "...mutually intelligible...varieties of one and the same language".〔Rapold 2006〕 In unusual variance from most of the other languages in Africa, Bench has retroflex consonant phonemes.〔Breeze 1988.〕 The language is also noteworthy in that it has six phonemic tones, one of only a handful of languages in the world that have this many.〔Wedekind 1983, 1985a, 1985b.〕 Bench has a whistled form used primarily by male speakers, which permits communication over greater distances than spoken Bench. The whistle can be created using the lips or made from a hollow created with both hands. Additionally, this form of the language may be communicated via the 5-stringed krar.〔Wedekind 1983〕 ==Sounds== The phonemic vowels of Bench are . There are six phonemic tones: five level tones (numbered 1 to 5 in the literature, with 1 being the lowest) and one rising tone 23 . The top tone is sometimes realized as a high rising 45 .〔Note that this is the East Asian tone numbering convention, and the opposite of the literature for other African languages, where 1 is high and 5 is low. The issue will be avoided here by using IPA diacritics.〕 On the vowel ''o,'' they are The consonants are: All of these can occur palatalized, but only before , suggesting an alternate analysis of a sixth phonemic vowel . Labialized consonants are reported for and , but their phonemic status is unclear; they only occur after . For the phoneme the realizations of and () are in free variation; has the allophone before back vowels. The syllable structure is (C)V(C)(C)(C) + tone or (C) N (C), where C represents any consonant, V any vowel, N any nasal, and brackets an optional element. CC clusters consist of a continuant followed by a plosive, fricative, or affricate; in CCC clusters, the first consonant must be one of or , the second either or a voiceless fricative, and the third or . 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bench language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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