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Western Plains Dogon

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The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali are mutually intelligible . They are sometimes called the Kan Dogon because they use the word kan (also spelled kã ) for varieties of speech. The dialects are:

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13-566: The latter two are traditionally subsumed under the name Tene kã (Tene Kan, Tene Tingi), but Hochstetler separates them because the three varieties are about equidistant. There are a quarter million speakers of these dialects, about evenly split between Tomo Kan and Tene Kan, making this the most populous of the Dogon languages. There are a few Tomo-speaking villages just across the border in Burkina Faso. This article about Dogon languages

26-429: A substratum from a "missing" branch of Nilo-Saharan that had split off relatively early from Proto-Nilo-Saharan, and tentatively calls that branch "Plateau". The Dogon consider themselves a single ethnic group, but recognise that their languages are different. In Dogon cosmology, Dogon constitutes six of the twelve languages of the world (the others being Fulfulde , Mooré , Bambara , Bozo and Tamasheq ). Jamsay

39-411: A binary east-west split within Dogon, with Yanda Dom Dogon , Tebul Ure Dogon , and Najamba-Kindige as originally western Dogon languages that have become increasingly more similar to eastern Dogon languages due to intensive contact. Comparison of basic vocabulary words of the Dogon languages, along with Bangime: Comparison of numerals in individual languages: Jamsai Dogon Jamsay Dogon

52-458: Is mutually intelligible with other escarpment varieties. However, the plains languages—Tene Ka, Tomo Ka, and Jamsay , which are not intelligible with Toro so—have more speakers. Bangime language ( aka Baŋgɛri mɛ), is considered a divergent branch of Dogon by some and a possible language isolate by others (Blench 2005b). Calame-Griaule appears to have been the first to work out the various varieties of Dogon. Calame-Griaule (1956) classified

65-567: Is subject–object–verb . The evidence linking Dogon to the Niger–Congo family is mainly a few numerals and some common core vocabulary. Various theories have been proposed, placing them with Gur , Mande , or as an independent branch, the last now being the preferred approach. The Dogon languages show very few remnants of the noun class system characteristic of much of Niger–Congo, leading linguists to conclude that they likely diverged from Niger–Congo very early. Roger Blench comments, Dogon

78-493: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dogon languages The Dogon languages are a small closely related language family that is spoken by the Dogon people of Mali and may belong to the proposed Niger–Congo family . There are about 600,000 speakers of its dozen languages. They are tonal languages , and most, like Dogul , have two tones, but some, like Donno So , have three. Their basic word order

91-426: Is both lexically and structurally very different from most other [Niger–Congo] families. It lacks the noun-classes usually regarded as typical of Niger–Congo and has a word order (SOV) that resembles Mande and Ịjọ, but not the other branches. The system of verbal inflections, resembling French is quite unlike any surrounding languages. As a consequence, the ancestor of Dogon is likely to have diverged very early, although

104-420: Is not mutually intelligible with other Plains Dogon languages, but is widely known as the prestige variety due to its use as the language of radio broadcasts. Dialects are Domno tegu, Gono tegu, Bama tegu, and Guru tegu ; their degree of mutual intelligibility has not been recorded. Domno is the standard dialect, and considered the purest; Guru (Koro) is the dialect of that town. Jamsai gets its name from

117-645: Is one of the Dogon languages spoken in Mali , and the only one spoken in Burkina Faso apart from a few villages of Tomo Kan . It is one of the plains languages spoken in Dogon villages outside the Bandiagara Escarpment (the cliffs that the Dogon ethnic group is usually associated with). It is a major language in Koro , at the south end of the escarpment, and stretches as far north as Douentza . It

130-432: Is thought to be the original Dogon language, but the Dogon "recognise a myriad of tiny distinctions even between parts of villages and sometimes individuals, and strive to preserve these" (Hochstetler 2004:18). The best-studied Dogon language is the escarpment language Toro So (Tɔrɔ sɔɔ) of Sanga , due to Marcel Griaule 's studies there and because Toro So was selected as one of thirteen national languages of Mali. It

143-409: The languages as follows, with accommodation given for languages which have since been discovered (new Dogon languages were reported as late as 2005), or have since been shown to be mutually intelligible (as Hochstetler confirmed for the escarpment dialects). The two standard languages are asterisked. Douyon and Blench (2005) report an additional variety, which is as yet unclassified: Blench noted that

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156-465: The plural suffix on nouns suggests that Budu is closest to Mombo, so it has been tentatively included as West Dogon above. He also notes that Walo–Kumbe is lexically similar to Naŋa; Hochstetler suspects it may be Naŋa. The similarities between these languages may be shared with Yanda. These are all extremely poorly known. Glottolog 4.3 synthesises classifications from Moran & Prokić (2013) and Hochstetler (2004). Moran & Prokić (2013) argue for

169-687: The present-day languages probably reflect an origin some 3–4000 years ago. Dogon languages are territorially coherent, suggesting that, despite local migration histories, the Dogon have been in this area of Mali from their origin. and: Dogon is certainly a well-founded and coherent group. But it has no characteristic Niger–Congo features (noun-classes, verbal extensions, labial-velars ) and very few lexical cognates. It could equally well be an independent language family. The Bamana and Fula languages have exerted significant influence on Dogon, due to their close cultural and geographical ties. Blench (2015) speculates that Bangime and Dogon languages may have

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