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31-709: The Ligbi area in Ghana is bordered to the west by Nafaanra , the Senufo language of the Nafana people. The Ligbi people have come to the area of Begho (Bighu), an ancient trading town on the Tain river in Ghana, in the early 17th century before the Nafana. Ligbi has seven oral and seven nasal vowels. It is a tonal language with two level tones, High and Low. Syllables are of the form (C 1 )V(C 2 ) or N (a syllabic nasal ), where CV

62-422: A difference in meaning, as in sɛ , "to go", vs. sɛɛ , "fetish" or o , "we" vs. oo , "we will". Similarly, the phonemic contrastiveness of nasalization can be seen in sii , "to be giving birth," vs. sĩĩ , "to build". The vowel system closely resembles that of other Senufo languages. It is like the two Northern Senufo languages Supyire and Mamara in having only five nasal against seven oral vowels. In

93-470: A distinction between the length of vowels and whether they are oral or nasal (as in French or Portuguese ). There are also three distinct tones , a feature shared with the other Senufo languages. Nafaanra grammar features both tense and aspect which are marked with particles . Numbers are mainly formed by adding cardinal numbers to the number 5 and by multiplying the numbers 10, 20 and 100. Nafaanra

124-542: A low tone nasal is found). In general however, downstep is more widespread than in Supyire; a similar phenomenon is found in Palaka, Tagwana, and Djimini. An upstep is found in the imperative tense of high tone verbs: ki it tɔ close ki tɔ it close "close it!" The Nafaanra syllable comprises a vowel and a maximum of three consonants. A nasal consonant may occur as a syllable on its own, in which case it

155-452: A rather distant relationship. Likewise, Mensah and Tchagbale establish an intercomprehensibility factor of 38% with "Tyebaara" (Senari), concluding that Nafaanra is only distantly related to this dialect. Nafaanra has been tentatively linked to Palaka (Kpalaga) by Manessy , whereas Mills suggests a relation with the southern Tagwana–Djimini branch. Nafaanra has seven oral and five nasalized vowels . A difference in vowel length can make

186-467: A rising feature, the High tone sometimes is subject to downstep (a tonal process resulting in a High tone being realised lower than a preceding High tone), and an upstep is also found. The "rising feature" of Mid may be related to the fact that two different Mid tones are found in some other Senufo languages (e.g. Sucite and Supyire). The High tone downstep (signified by a raised exclamation mark) occurs in

217-506: A typical Niger–Congo noun class (or gender) system. Suffixes on nouns mark membership of one of the five noun genders. Pronouns, adjectives and copulas reflect the noun gender of the nominal they refer to. Although none of the sources on Nafaanra provides any details, it can be inferred from a brief word list given by Jordan that the Nafaanra noun class system resembles that of other Senufo languages. The basic word order in Nafaanra

248-510: Is subject–object–verb , as can be seen in the following sentence: bibilɛ boys ná PAST pé them nya see bibilɛ ná pé nya boys PAST them see "The boys saw them" Jordan lists the following list of pronouns , commenting, "Although the pronoun system appears quite simple, it becomes complicated because all the tenses are shown by a combination of pronoun plus particle." Tense and aspect in Nafaanra are generally encoded in two places: in preverbal particles and on

279-467: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Nafaanra language Nafaanra (sometimes written Nafaara, pronounced [nafãːra] ), also known as Nafanan or Nafana , is a Senufo language spoken in northwest Ghana , along the border with Ivory Coast , east of Bondoukou . It is spoken by approximately 90,000 people. Its speakers call themselves Nafana , but others call them Banda or Mfantera. Like other Senufo languages, Nafaanra

310-691: Is a tonal language. It is somewhat of an outlier in the Senufo language group, with the geographically-closest relatives, the Southern Senufo Tagwana–Djimini languages , approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) to the west, on the other side of Comoé National Park . The basic word order is subject–object–verb , like Latin and Japanese . Like other Niger–Congo languages , it has a noun class system, with nouns classified according to five different classes, which also affects pronouns , adjectives and copulas . The phonology features

341-638: Is bordered by Kulango languages to the west and southeast, while Deg (a Gur language ) is found to the north and east. The closest eastern and western neighbour is the Mande language Ligbi . Southeast and south of Nafaanra and Ligbi, the Akan language Abron is spoken. The Nafana people live in the north-west corner of the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana, concentrated mainly in Sampa (capital of

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372-436: Is called a syllabic nasal . The basic syllable structure can be rendered as (C 1 )(C 2 )V(C 3 ), with a preference for CV and CVV. Position C 1 may contain any consonant, although word-initial /r/ does not occur. Position C 2 may contain only trills (/r/) or approximants (/w, l, j/). Position C 3 may contain only nasals ( /m n ɲ ŋ/ ), in which case the syllable as a whole is nasalized . Senufo languages have

403-564: Is marked by the preverbal particle ná (high tone, as opposed to the low tone continuative particle). Future tense is marked by the particle wè . Simple sentences without a preverbal tense particle are interpreted as recent past (sometimes called immediate ). If aspect marking is absent, simple sentences are generally interpreted as completive . kòfí Begho Begho was a city located in Ghana , located just south of its successor community, Hani. Begho existed in some form beginning in

434-456: Is the most common syllable type. C 1 can be any of the consonants, whereas the optional C 2 slot can have only nasals homorganic with the following consonants, e.g., gbá m mádáánè "nine houses," gbá n táà "ten houses." V (a vowel) alone occurs word-initial only in personal pronouns, some loan words, and names, e.g., á jádɛ̀ "we have come." Ligbi has two level tones, low and high. This article about Mande languages

465-525: Is their first language, thought to be extinct until a fieldwork trip by Blench in 1998 proved the contrary. Maurice Delafosse was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra, calling it "a much dispersed Senufo tribe" in 1904. Westermann in his classification of West-African languages, also grouped Nafaanra with Senufo, apparently based on the word list found in Rapp. This classification is confirmed by Bendor-Samuel, who bases his internal Senufo classification on

496-589: Is unknown whether or not mangos, cowpeas, and okra were eaten. In addition, there was likely grain cultivation (sorghum or millet) as broken grindstones have been found. Through a persistent knowledge of up to 500 local plants in the area by modern locals, it can be hypothesized that the population of Begho was aware of plants for a variety of uses. When it came to animals, the population of Begho consumed both large and small animals. Many small animals, such as grass cutters and birds were trapped, smoked, and dried. The jaws of grass cutters could be found in almost all of

527-415: The 13th century, but its heyday began in the 15th century with a settlement there populated by early Jula traders emerging from Soninke Wangara lineages. The name derives from 'Biru' meaning 'market', the original Soninke name for Walata , an important trading center in modern-day Mauritania . Oral histories state that inhabitants dispersed into neighboring communities in the mid-18th century after

558-520: The Jaman North district) and Banda . There are two dialectal variants of Nafaanra: Pantera of Banda, and Fantera of Sampa. Bendor-Samuel gives a 79% cognate relationship on the Swadesh list between the two dialects, meaning that they have many basic words in common. The Banda dialect is considered central. The terms "Fantera" and "Pantera" come from other peoples and are considered pejorative by

589-647: The Nafana. The Nafana people say that they come from a village called Kakala in Ivory Coast. Their oral history says that some of their people are still there, and if they go back they will not be allowed to leave again. They arrived in the Banda area after the Ligbi people, who came from Begho (Bigu, Bighu) to the area in the early 17th century. According to Ethnologue , as of 2005, many Nafana are bilingual in Twi ,

620-536: The Northern Senufo languages (Mamara, Supyire) that have both /ç/ and its voiced counterpart /ʝ/ , and the Central and Southern Senufo languages (e.g. Karaboro, Senari, Djimini) that have no palatal fricatives at all. Like the other Senufo languages, Nafaanra has three contrastive tones: High, Mid and Low. Tone is normally not marked in the Nafaanra orthography. Examples are: The Mid tone sometimes has

651-711: The city and a total of 1000 to 1500 house mounds, leading to an estimate of a largest population of about 7,000 - 10,000 people. The quarters consisted of one for the local Brong population, the Nyarko quarter, the Kramo quarter, the Dwinfor quarter, and the market quarter. The Nyarko quarter is believed to have hosted Brong, while the Kramo quarter is believed to have hosted Mande-speaking Muslims. The Dwinfuor quarter showed evidence of metallurgy. Two other quarters were identified, however they were not excavated. The pottery scatter of

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682-562: The comparative word lists in Swadesh et al. It is less clear which particular Senufo branch Nafaanra is most closely related to. Bendor-Samuel gives a 60% cognate relationship based on the Swadesh list with "Tenere" (a western Senari dialect), 59% with "Central Senari" (the Senari dialect spoken around Korhogo), and 43% with the non-Senufo languages Mo (or Deg), Kabre (or Kabiye) , and Dogon . The relatively low scores of about 60% point to

713-712: The destruction of the town by the Ashanti Empire . Nearby towns tracing their founders' origin to Begho include Kong and Bondoukou . The town persisted in a reduced form into the early 19th century, however. Excavations were carried out by the University of Ghana from 1970 to 1979, and a joint excavation was carried out by UCLA and the University of Ghana in 1979. There was never an extensive surface survey, only specific sites were excavated. The excavations identified at least 5 separate quarters throughout

744-414: The following context: we he FUT sɛ go we sɛ he FUT go "he will go". It is likely that the tonal lowering seen in this particular example is related to the low tone nasal prefix found in future tense constructions in some other Senufo languages. In fact, Supyire shows a similar phenomenon in future tense constructions with a direct object (in other future tense constructions,

775-623: The orthography, nasalization of vowels is marked by adding the letter "n" after the vowel. In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between angled brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of "j" for IPA [ɟ] and the use of "y" for IPA [j] , common in African orthographies. The consonant system of Nafaanra is fairly similar to that of other Senufo languages. Nafaanra has only one attested palatal fricative, /ç/ , occupying an intermediate position between

806-550: The regional lingua franca , to some extent. Using the ILR scale , 50% of Nafana have limited working proficiency in Twi , while 20% have general professional proficiency . The remaining 30% have either elementary proficiency (15%) or no proficiency at all (15%). 15–25% of the Nafana people are literate in Twi, whereas only 1–5% are literate in Nafaanra. 65 Dompo people living in the close vicinity of Banda have shifted to Nafaanra. Dompo

837-528: The site covered about 13,000 hectares. It was difficult to identify all of the collapsed houses in the area, as the area is covered in thick elephant grass up to 3m tall and Hani villagers using the earth from collapsed houses for the swish walls of new houses. Houses tended to be built around a courtyard with rooms not being larger than 3m by 4m, and the floors were set up higher than the courtyard by about 15 cm to 25 cm. Houses tended to have cisterns, usually 1m wide and 2m deep. The courtyards were likely

868-600: The sites of activities such as shelling of nuts and cooking, as possible hearthstones have been found in these locations. Spindle whorls were found in each of the quarters, and especially the Brong quarter. Additionally, dye pits were identified in the Kramo quarter. Textiles were likely important in Begho. Arabic sources note Begho as well known for its textiles. There is evidence for both ironworking and brassworking in Begho. Both predated Begho itself. A distinct iron smelting area

899-444: The verb form. Nafaanra has past, recent past, and future tenses and continuative aspect. In a simple sentence, the order of the various constituents can be rendered as follows: SUBJECT • (NEGATION) • (TENSE) • (ASPECT) • VERB . When the negative suffix -n is present, no fusing of preverbal particles takes place. Nafaanra additionally expresses some tense/aspect matters by use of certain time adverbs and auxiliary verbs. Past tense

930-538: Was found 4.2 km northwest of Begho. Ironworking probably only took place there between the 15th to 17th centuries, as iron could eventually be imported from larger trade networks. Blacksmithing, however, took place in Begho itself. Slag has been found in each of the quarters. Iron was smithed into arrowheads, knives, rings, nails, hoe blades, and spurs. Brassworking was based out of the Dwinfuor quarter, as there were many clay crucibles with brass signatures. The brass

961-491: Was smithed into rings, earrings, bracelets, leglets, and other jewelry. In addition, brass weights were found that follow the Islamic system of weights. Begho's population took great advantage of the natural resources surrounding the city. Yams were cultivated from 'famer shelters' outside of the city, as evidenced from scatters of pottery miles outside of the city. It is likely that carrots and onion were eaten at Begho, but it

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