The Bak languages are a group of typologically
Atlantic languages
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages"West Atlantic" is the traditional term, following Diedrich Hermann Westermann; "Atlantic" is more typical in recent work, particularly since Bendor-Samuel (1989), but is also used specific ...
of
Senegal
Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣� ...
and
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ), ...
linked in 2010 to the erstwhile Atlantic isolate
Bijago
Bijago or Bidyogo is the language of the Bissagos Islands, Bissagos Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau. There are some difficulties of grammar and intelligibility between dialects, with the Kamona dialect being unintelligible to the others.
Dialects a ...
. Bak languages are non-
tonal.
Name
David Dalby coined the term ''Bak'' from the ''bVk''- prefix found in the personal plural forms of demonstratives in the Bak languages. The -''k''- is not found in other
Atlantic languages
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages"West Atlantic" is the traditional term, following Diedrich Hermann Westermann; "Atlantic" is more typical in recent work, particularly since Bendor-Samuel (1989), but is also used specific ...
.
[Wilson, William André Auquier. 2007. ''Guinea Languages of the Atlantic group: description and internal classification''. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik, 12.) Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.]
Languages
Classification of Bijago
Bijago is highly divergent. Sapir (1971) classified it as an isolate within West Atlantic. However, Segerer (2010) showed that this is primarily due to unrecognized sound changes, and that Bijago is in fact close to the Bak languages.
[Segerer, Guillaume. 2010b. The Atlantic languages: State of the art. Paper presented at the International Workshop �]
Genealogical language classification in Africa beyond Greenberg
” Humboldt University Berlin, 21‒22 February. (accessed 30 March 2017). For example, the following cognates in Bijago and
Joola Kasa (one of the Jola languages) are completely regular, but had not previously been identified:
Segerer reconstructs the ancestral forms as *bu-gof and *di-gɛs, respectively, with the following developments:
* *bu-gof
** > *bu-kof > *bu-kow > ''fu-kow''
** > *bu-ŋof > *bu-ŋo > ''(u-)bu''
* *di-gɛs
** > *di-kis > *di-kil > ''ji-cil''
** > *ne-ŋɛs > *ne-ŋɛ > ''nɛ''
Comparative vocabulary
Comparison of basic vocabulary words of the Bak languages:
[Wilson, William André Auquier. 2007. ''Guinea Languages of the Atlantic group: description and internal classification''. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik, 12.) Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.]
References
{{Niger-Congo branches
Atlantic languages