The Bolgo language is a member of the
Bua languages
The Bua languages are a subgroup of the Mbum–Day subgroup of the Savanna languages spoken by fewer than 30,000 people in southern Chad in an area stretching roughly between the Chari River and the Guéra Massif. They were labeled "G13" in Jo ...
spoken in south-central
Chad, in the villages of Koya, Boli, Gagne, and Bedi southeast of
Melfi
Melfi ( Lucano: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Vulture area of the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. Geographically, it is midway between Naples and Bari. In 2015 it had a population of 17,768.
Geography
On ...
, by about 1,800 people (SIL 1993). Speakers also make up the majority of the population of Sorki canton in
Chinguil
Chinguil is a sub-prefecture of Guéra Region in Chad.
Demographics
Ethnic composition by canton in 2016:Oxfam
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global pover ...
sub-prefecture.
[ Oxfam and Office National de Développement Rural (ONDR). 2016. ]
Atlas de la vulnérabilité dans le Guera. Première partie: synthèse regional
'. 2nd edition (updated from 2013 edition). PASISAT (Projet d’Appui à l’Amélioration du Système d’Information sur la Sécurité Alimentaire au Tchad).
Dialects
According to de Rendinger, it has two principal dialects, Bolgo Werel around
Daguela and Bolgo Mengo around
Aloa-Niagara, as well as a dialect called Bolgo Bormo; according to the
Ethnologue, its principal dialects are called Bolgo Dugag and Bolgo Kubar ("small" and "great" Bolgo.) Great Bolgo is spoken to the north, bordering
Mogum and
Saba Saba may refer to:
Places
* Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea
* Şaba (Romanian for Shabo), a town of the Odesa Oblast, Ukraine
* Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras
* Saba (river), ...
; Little Bolgo is spoken to the south, bordering the closely related language
Koke as well as
Chadian Arabic
Chadian Arabic ( ar, لهجة تشادية), also known as Shuwa Arabic, Baggara Arabic, Western Sudanic Arabic, or West Sudanic Arabic (WSA), is a variety of Arabic and the first language of 1.6 million people, both town dwellers and nomadic c ...
.
Bolgo groups and names listed by Kastenholz (2017:4):
[Kastenholz, Raimund. 2017. ]
La langue bolgo du Guéra (Tchad) : notes de recherche et matériel lexical
'. (Working Papers of the Department of Anthropology and African Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, 172).
Grammar
Its typical word order is
subject–verb–object, noun–adjective, aspect–verb, possessor–possessed. There is no true plural, but ''-gi'' serves as a collective marker. The verb is negated with ''ta'', placed at the end of the sentence.
Example sentences:
* ''in-nāṇ rīm nāṇ n'ini'' (give-me water I drink), "give me water to drink"
* ''ibéri koko ao léti'' (man marry woman two), "the man married two women".
Bibliography
* Gen. de Rendinger,
Contribution à l'étude des langues nègres du Centre Africain, ''Journal de la Société des Africanistes'', XIX-II, 1949, pp. 143–194.
* Peter Fuchs, 1970, ''Die Religion der Hadjerai: Kult und Autorität.'' Berlin. (Contains an ethnolinguistic map of the region.)
* Kastenholz, Raimund (2017)
La Langue Bolgo du Guéra (Tchad): Notes de recherche et matériel lexical Arbeitspapiere des Instituts für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. (Working Papers of the Department of Anthropology and African Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) 172.
* Tikka, Katie Ann. 2019. "Phonology And Morphology Of Bolgo" (2019). MA thesis, University of North Dakota. https://commons.und.edu/theses/2869
References
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Languages of Chad
Bua languages