Baoulé, also known as Baule or Bawule, is a language spoken in central and southern

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

, including in the regions of Lacs, Lagunes, Gôh-Djiboua, Sassandra-Marahoué, Vallée du Bandama, Woroba, and

Yamoussoukro Yamoussoukro (; , locally ) is the ''de jure'' capital of Ivory Coast and an autonomous district. As of the 2014 census, Yamoussoukro is the fifth most populous city in Ivory Coast with a population of 212,670. Located north-west of Abidjan, th ...

, by approximately 4.7 million people. It is a Kwa language of the Central Tano branch, forming a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

with Anyin and closely related to Nzema and Sehwi. It is the common language of the

Baoulé people The Baule or Baoulé ( Baule: ''Baule'' a.u.le french: baoulé awle are an Akan people and one of the largest ethnicities in Côte d'Ivoire who historically migrated from what is today Ghana. The Baoulé are traditionally farmers who live in ...

, the largest ethnic group in Ivory Coast.

Translations of the Bible

In 1946, portions of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

translated into Baoulé were first published; the full

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

followed in 1953. The complete Bible was published first in 1998, by the

Bible Society A Bible society is a non-profit organization, usually nondenominational in makeup, devoted to translating, publishing, and distributing the Bible at affordable prices. In recent years they also are increasingly involved in advocating its credibi ...

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, ...

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Of these vowels, five may be nasalized: /ĩ/, /ɛ̃/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /ɔ̃/.

Tones

Baoulé has five tones: high, low, mid, rising, and falling.

Orthography

Baoulé uses the following letters to indicate the following phonemes:

References

External links

Baoulé entry
at the

World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM i ...

PanAfriL10n page on Anyi & Baule

Baoulé Phonology (French)

Baule kasahorow
Central Tano languages Languages of Ivory Coast Bible versions and translations Baoulé people {{IvoryCoast-stub