Baoulé language
Baoulé, also known as Baule or Bawule, is a Niger-Congo language spoken in central and southern Ivory Coast, including in the regions of Lacs, Lagunes, Gôh-Djiboua, Sassandra-Marahoué, Vallée du Bandama, Woroba, and Yamoussoukro, by approximately 4.7 million people. It is a Kwa language of the Central Tano branch, forming a dialect continuum with Anyin and closely related to Nzema and Sehwi.[3] It is the common language of the Baoulé people, the largest ethnic group in Ivory Coast.[4]
Baoulé | |
---|---|
Region | Ivory Coast |
Ethnicity | Baoulé people |
Native speakers | 4.7 million (2017)[1] |
Niger–Congo
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | bci |
Glottolog | baou1238 [2] |
Translations of the Bible
In 1946, portions of the Bible translated into Baoulé were first published; the full New Testament followed in 1953.[5] The complete Bible was published first in 1998, by the Bible Society in Abidjan.
Phonology
Consonants
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial- velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | kp |
voiced | b | d | ɟ | g | gb | |
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | |||
voiced | v | z | ||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||
Lateral | l | |||||
Trill | r | |||||
Approximant | j | w |
Vowels
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
Close | i | u |
Close-mid | e | o |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ |
Open | a |
Of these vowels, five may be nasalized: /ĩ/, /ɛ̃/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /ɔ̃/.[6][7]
Tones
Baoulé has five tones: high, low, mid, rising, and falling.[8]
Orthography
Baoulé uses the following letters to indicate the following phonemes:[6]
Uppercase | A | B | C | D | E | Ɛ | F | G | GB | I | J | L | K | M | N | NY | O | Ɔ | P | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lowercase | a | b | c | d | e | ɛ | f | g | gb | i | j | l | k | m | n | ny | o | ɔ | p | s | t | u | v | w | y | z |
Phoneme | /a/ | /b/ | /c/ | /d/ | /e/ | /ɛ/ | /f/ | /g/ | /gb/ | /i/ | /ɟ/ | /l/ | /k/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ɲ/ | /o/ | /ɔ/ | /p/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /v/ | /w/ | /j/ | /z/ |
See also
- Akan language
- Anyin language
References
- Baoulé at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Baoule". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- Koffi, Ettien N'da (1990). The interface between phonology and morpho(phono)logy in the standardization of Anyi orthography (PDF).
- "Baoulé". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2020-01-03.
- Baoulé at World Scriptures
- "Système alphabétique de la langue baoulé". Retrieved 2017-01-29.
- Kouadio N'guessan, Jérémie; Kouame, Kouakou (2004). Parlons baoulé: langue et culture de la Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: L'Harmattan.
- "PHOIBLE 2.0 -". phoible.org. Retrieved 2020-01-03.
Further reading
- Timyan, Judith E., "A Discourse-Based Grammar of Baule: The Kode Dialect" (1977). CUNY Academic Works.
- Carteron, Michel. 1972. Étude de la langue baoule. Baconda, Cote d'Ivoire: s.n.
External links
- Baoulé entry at the World Atlas of Language Structures
- PanAfriL10n page on Anyi & Baule
- Baoulé Phonology (French)
- Baule kasahorow
Baoulé language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |