Berta proper, a.k.a. Gebeto, is spoken by the Berta (also Bertha, Barta, Burta) in Sudan and Ethiopia. As of 2006 Berta had approximately 180,000 speakers in Sudan.^[2]

The three Berta languages, Gebeto, Fadashi and Undu, are often considered dialects of a single language. Berta proper includes the dialects Bake, Dabuso, Gebeto, Mayu, and Shuru; the dialect name Gebeto may be extended to all of Berta proper.

Phonology

Consonants

• Voiced plosives /b, d, ɡ/ may be heard as voiceless [p, t, k] in free variation, word-initially or word-finally.
• A glottal stop [ʔ] mainly occurs between vowels, and may also be heard before word-initial vowel sounds.
• Nasal-stop sequences may occur morpheme-initially as [mb, nd, ŋɡ, ŋkʼ].
• /ŋ/ is heard as [ɲ] when preceding a front vowel /i/ or /e/.
• /kʼ/ is heard as a palatal [cʼ] when before front vowels.
• /ɡ/ can be heard as voiced palatal [ɟ] or as a voiceless palatal [c] when before front vowels.
• /h/ in word-final position can be heard as a fricative [x].
• /s, θ/ may sometimes occur as slightly voiced [z, ð] in vocalic or nasal environments.

Vowels

• If a non-closed vowel sound, /ɛ/ or /ɔ/, are adjacent to a closed vowel sound like /i/ or /u/ within vowel harmony, they are then heard as more closed [e, o].^[3]

Pronouns

The pronouns of Berta are as follows: