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37-529: Dagbani is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Mampruli , Nabit , Talni , Kamara , Kantosi , and Hanga , also spoken in Northern , North East , Upper East , and Savannah Regions . It is also similar to the other members of the same subgroup spoken in other regions, including Dagaare and Wali , spoken in Upper West Region of Ghana, along with Frafra and Kusaal , spoken in

74-653: A creolization process between the Berber and Old North African languages; this creolized language may reflect the linguistic connections between modern Berber speakers and Guanche speakers of the Canary Islands . Among many unknown elements found in rock engravings on the Canary Islands, some evidence (e.g., few basic lexicon , numbers) of the Punic language and Libyco-Berber script have been found. While

111-654: A dialect continuum , neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but differences mount with distance, so that more widely separated varieties may not be mutually intelligible. Intelligibility can be partial, as is the case with Azerbaijani and Turkish , or significant, as is the case with Bulgarian and Macedonian . However, sign languages , such as American and British Sign Language , usually do not exhibit mutual intelligibility with each other. Asymmetric intelligibility refers to two languages that are considered partially mutually intelligible, but for various reasons, one group of speakers has more difficulty understanding

148-636: A Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England . He researches, publishes, and works as a consultant. Blench is known for his wide-ranging interests and has made important contributions to African linguistics , Southeast Asian linguistics, anthropology, ethnomusicology , ethnobotany , and various other related fields. He has done significant research on the Niger–Congo , Nilo-Saharan , and Afroasiatic families, as well as

185-552: A number of allophonic distinctions. Tone is not marked. Dagbani is agglutinative , but with some fusion of affixes. The constituent order in Dagbani sentences is usually agent–verb–object . There is insight into a historical stage of the language in the papers of Rudolf Fisch , reflecting data collected during his missionary work in the German Togoland colony in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, especially

222-746: A set(s) of languages known as Old North African, which were not necessarily genetically related to one another. Ethnic groups of Iberia that spoke the Tartessian language may be considered Old North African speakers. Ethnic groups and the archaeological cultures of North Africa that came before the Capsian culture, ethnic groups of the Capsian culture , and ethnic groups of the Neolithic Maghreb are considered to be Old North African speakers. As large animals migrated into and across

259-607: A single prestige variety in Modern Standard Arabic . In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between different North Germanic languages . However, because there are various standard forms of the North Germanic languages, they are classified as separate languages. A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but

296-409: A verb and are all monosyllabic. Postverbal pronouns usually denote objects. Given the fact that preverbal and postverbal pronouns do not denote two complementary sets, one could refer to them as unmarked or specifically marked for postverbal occurrence. Emphatic pronouns in Dagbani serve as regular pronouns in that they can stand in isolation, preverbally or postverbally. Reciprocals are formed by

333-552: Is characterised by two level tones and downstep (a lowering effect occurring between sequences of the same phonemic tone). Dagbani is written in a Latin alphabet with the addition of the apostrophe , the letters ɛ , ɣ , ŋ , ɔ , and ʒ , and the digraphs ch , gb , kp , ŋm, sh and ny . The literacy rate used to be only 2–3%. This percentage is expected to rise as Dagbani is now a compulsory subject in primary and junior secondary school all over Dagbon . The orthography currently used (Orthography Committee /d(1998)) represents

370-596: Is ongoing and can be viewed online. Each set of personal pronouns in Dagbani is distinguished regarding person , number and animacy . Besides the distinction between singular and plural , there is an additional distinction between [+/- animate] in the 3rd person. Moreover, Dagbani distinguishes between emphatic and non-emphatic pronouns and there are no gender distinctions. While there is no morphological differentiation between grammatical cases, pronouns can occur in different forms according to whether they appear pre- or postverbally. Preverbal pronouns serve as subjects of

407-505: Is sometimes used to distinguish languages from dialects , although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between varieties can be asymmetric; that is, speakers of one variety may be able to better understand another than vice versa. An example of this is the case between Afrikaans and Dutch . It is generally easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch. (See Afrikaans § Mutual intelligibility with Dutch ). In

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444-568: The Arunachal languages . Additionally, Blench has published extensively on the relationship between linguistics and archaeology. Blench is currently engaged in a long-term project to document the languages of central Nigeria . He has also expressed concern about ranching in Nigeria. Blench collaborated with the late Professor Kay Williamson , who died in January 2005, and is now a trustee of

481-862: The Canary Islands . Though speculative, Guanche speakers may have spoken the Basque language , Tartessian language, and other similar languages of the Iberian Peninsula; supportive evidence for this view may be found in the few lexemes that have been related to the Basque language and an absence of Berber etymology found in some Guanche words. Due to the migration of incoming Arabic (e.g., Hassānīya ), Berber (e.g., Tuareg ), and Punic speakers, Old North African languages may have eventually ceased being spoken in North Africa. Remnants of extinct Old North African languages may have been preserved in

518-587: The Green Sahara , Old North African speakers, who hunted them as game animals, also migrated into and across the Sahara. The variety of cultures in the Maghreb described by Herodotus in 2500 BP may have been the cultural variety existing among Old North African speakers at that time. In 300 BCE, Guanche speakers, who may have been Old North African speakers rather than Berber speakers, may have peopled

555-816: The Overseas Development Institute in London. Old North African speakers, who have been misidentified as Paleoberbers and did not speak a language(s) that is linguistically related to existing Berber languages , were foragers of prehistoric North Africa that spoke a presently extinct set(s) of languages. Roger Blench coined the term, "Old North African," to describe and distinguish earlier languages spoken in North Africa from later languages spoken by incoming Berber speakers, Punic speakers, and Arabic speakers. From coastal North Africa to Iberia (e.g., Spain ), ethnic groups spoke

592-462: The ancient Egyptian language . For example, language contacts between Darfurian and Chadian proto-languages with the ancient Egyptian language. Additionally, the Tehenu and Temehu , which may have been ethnic groups with cultures and languages distinct from one another, may have also had their languages preserved in the ancient Egyptian language. The Libyco-Berber script may be the result of

629-477: The schwa (ə) in place of /ɨ/ , unlike other researchers on the language who use the higher articulated /ɨ/ . Allophonic variation based on tongue-root advancement is well attested for 4 of these vowels: [i] ~ [ɪ]/[ə] , [e] ~ [ɛ] , [u] ~ [ʊ] and [o] ~ [ɔ] . Dagbani is a tonal language in which pitch is used to distinguish words, as in gballi [ɡbálːɪ́] (high-high) 'grave' vs. gballi [ɡbálːɪ̀] (high-low) 'zana mat'. The tone system of Dagbani

666-630: The varieties of Chinese , and parts of the Romance , Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include dialect area ( Leonard Bloomfield ) and L-complex ( Charles F. Hockett ). Northern Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia form a dialect continuum where the two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. As such, spoken Danish and Swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but Swedes in

703-576: The Öresund region (including Malmö and Helsingborg ), across the strait from the Danish capital Copenhagen , understand Danish somewhat better, largely due to the proximity of the region to Danish-speaking areas. While Norway was under Danish rule , the Bokmål written standard of Norwegian developed from Dano-Norwegian , a koiné language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during

740-552: The Berber languages have been diverged from other Afroasiatic languages , may reflect inheritance from Old North African languages. While possibly being Nilo-Saharan languages, the Nemadi and Dawada languages may also be descendant languages of the Old North African languages. Genetics may further inform the academic discussion about the connections between Old North African speakers and Nilo-Saharan speakers to

777-458: The Canary Islands. The internal diversity of the Berber languages are not able to be reconciled with how early the Neolithic (7000 BP, afterwards) and Capsian (12,000 BP - 8000 BP) periods occurred in North Africa; thus, these Neolithic and Capsian periods in North Africa are not able to be characterized as "Berber." The foundational vocabulary of the Berber languages, if not due to how long

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814-564: The Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, which exists both to publish the unpublished material left by Kay Williamson and to promote the study of Nigerian languages . A series of publications supported by the trust is under way with Rüdiger Köppe Verlag in Cologne . Blench has also conducted research and evaluations of international development activities worldwide, as a consultant and research fellow of

851-813: The Upper East Region of the country. In Togo, Dagbani is spoken in the Savanes Region on the border with Ghana. Dagbani has a major dialect split between Eastern Dagbani (Nayahali), centred on the traditional capital town of Yendi (Naya), and Western Dagbani (Tomosili), centred on the administrative capital of the Northern Region, Tamale . The dialects are, however, mutually intelligible, and mainly consist of different root vowels in some lexemes , and different forms or pronunciations of some nouns, particularly those referring to local flora. The words Dagbani and Dagbanli given above for

888-640: The addition of the word taba after the verb. Ti 1PL ŋmaai cut taba. each-other Ti ŋmaai taba. 1PL cut each-other „We cut each other.“ Reflexive pronouns are formed by the suffix -maŋa , which is attached to the non-emphatic preverbal pronoun. O 3SG ŋmaagi cut o-maŋa. 3SG - REFL O ŋmaagi o-maŋa. 3SG cut 3SG-REFL „He cuts himself.“ The affix maŋa can also occur as an emphatic pronoun after nouns. O 3SG zo friend maŋa. REFL O zo maŋa. 3SG friend REFL „His friend himself.“ The possessive pronouns in Dagbani exactly correspond to

925-422: The context of the communication. Classifications may also shift for reasons external to the languages themselves. As an example, in the case of a linear dialect continuum , the central varieties may become extinct , leaving only the varieties at both ends. Consequently, these end varieties may be reclassified as two languages, even though no significant linguistic change has occurred within the two extremes during

962-419: The dialects themselves, with the standard Shtokavian dialect , and with other languages. For example, Torlakian, which is considered a subdialect of Serbian Old Shtokavian , has significant mutual intelligibility with Macedonian and Bulgarian . Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist , ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist . He has an M.A. and

999-518: The differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include the Indo-Aryan languages across large parts of India , varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, the Turkic languages ,

1036-401: The extinction of the central varieties. Furthermore, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language, even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties. This is similarly the case among the varieties of Arabic , which also share

1073-476: The general view of the Berber languages being linguistically connected to the Guanche language is based largely on numerical evidence, it is also as probable that the affinity found between the languages are due to late-added Berber loanwords and that Guanche speakers were Old North African speakers. The Numidian language , which may have also been an Old North African language, constitutes the rock engravings in

1110-801: The later years of the union. Additionally, Norwegian assimilated a considerable amount of Danish vocabulary as well as traditional Danish expressions. As a consequence, spoken mutual intelligibility is not reciprocal. Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the Romance languages are given. For example, in The Linguasphere register of the world's languages and speech communities , David Dalby lists 23 languages based on mutual intelligibility: The non-standard vernacular dialects of Serbo-Croatian ( Kajkavian , Chakavian and Torlakian ) diverge more significantly from all four normative varieties of Serbo-Croatian. Their mutual intelligibility varies greatly between

1147-416: The lexical list, though there is also some grammatical information and sample texts. A more modern glossary was published in 1934 by a southern Ghanaian officer of the colonial government, E. Foster Tamakloe, in 1934, with a revised edition by British officer Harold Blair. Various editors added to the wordlist and a more complete publication was produced in 2003 by a Dagomba scholar, Ibrahim Mahama. According to

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1184-417: The linguist Salifu Nantogma Alhassan, there is evidence to suggest that there are gender-related double standards in the Dagbani language with "more labels that trivialise females than males". Meanwhile, the data was electronically compiled by John Miller Chernoff and Roger Blench (whose version is published online), and converted into a database by Tony Naden , on the basis of which a full-featured dictionary

1221-615: The name of the language are respectively the Eastern and Western dialect forms of the name, but the Dagbani Orthography Committee resolved that “It was decided that in the spelling system <Dagbani> is used to refer to the ... Language, and <Dagbanli> ... to the life and culture”; in the spoken language, each dialect uses its form of the name for both functions. Dagbani has eleven phonemic vowels – six short vowels and five long vowels: Olawsky (1999) puts

1258-607: The non-hard-of-hearing people of the United Kingdom and the United States share the same spoken language. The grammar of sign languages does not usually resemble that of the spoken languages used in the same geographical area. To illustrate, in terms of syntax , ASL shares more in common with spoken Japanese than with English . Almost all linguists use mutual intelligibility as the primary linguistic criterion for determining whether two speech varieties represent

1295-749: The other language than the other way around. For example, if one language is related to another but has simplified its grammar , the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but not vice versa. To illustrate, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans as a result of Afrikaans's simplified grammar. Sign languages are not universal and usually not mutually intelligible, although there are also similarities among different sign languages. Sign languages are independent of spoken languages and follow their own linguistic development. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language (ASL) are quite different linguistically and mutually unintelligible, even though

1332-414: The preverbal non-emphatic pronouns, which always proceed the possessed constituent. O 3SG yili. house Mutual intelligibility In linguistics , mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelligibility

1369-476: The same or different languages. A primary challenge to this position is that speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other effectively if they choose to do so. In the case of transparently cognate languages recognized as distinct such as Spanish and Italian, mutual intelligibility is in principle and in practice not binary (simply yes or no), but occurs in varying degrees, subject to numerous variables specific to individual speakers in

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