The Dogon languages are a small closely related

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

that is spoken by the

Dogon people The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogo ...

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

and may belong to the proposed Niger–Congo family. There are about 600,000 speakers of its dozen languages. They are

tonal languages Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasis ...

, and most, like Dogul, have two tones, but some, like Donno So, have three. Their basic

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

is subject–object–verb.

External relationships

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 In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...

system characteristic of much of Niger–Congo, leading linguists to conclude that they likely diverged from Niger–Congo very early.

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...

comments, and: The Bamana and

Fula language Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam script, Adlam: , , ; Ajami script, Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian languages, Senegambian language spoken by arou ...

s have exerted significant influence on Dogon, due to their close cultural and geographical ties. Blench (2015) speculates that Bangime and Dogon languages may have a

substratum Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to: *Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth *''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics *Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere * ...

from a "missing" branch of

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...

that had split off relatively early from Proto-Nilo-Saharan, and tentatively calls that branch "Plateau".

Internal classification

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 Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North and West Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others bei ...

). Jamsay 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 An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

language Toro So (Tɔrɔ sɔɔ) of Sanga, due to

Marcel Griaule Marcel Griaule (16 May 1898 – 23 February 1956) was a French author and anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France. He worked together with Germaine ...

's studies there and because Toro So was selected as one of thirteen

national language '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

s of Mali. It is

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

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 Bangime (; , or, in full, ) is a language isolate spoken by 3,500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali, who call themselves the ("hidden people"). Bangande is the name of the ethnicity of this community and their population grows a ...

( Baŋgɛri mɛ), is considered a divergent branch of Dogon by some and a possible

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

by others (Blench 2005b). It is now generally considered to be an isolate.

Calame-Griaule (1956)

Calame-Griaule appears to have been the first to work out the various varieties of Dogon. Calame-Griaule (1956) classified 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. *Plains Dogon: Jamsai,* Tɔrɔ tegu, Western Plains (dialects: Togo kã, Tengu kã, Tomo kã) * Escarpment Dogon (dialects: Tɔrɔ sɔɔ,*

Tommo so Tommo So is a language spoken in the eastern part of Mali's Mopti Region. It is placed under the Dogon language family, a subfamily of the Niger-Congo language family. There are approximately 60,000 speakers of Tommo So. Of the twelve Dogon l ...

, Donno sɔ Kamma sɔ) *West Dogon: Duleri, Mombo, Ampari– Penange; Budu *North Plateau Dogon: Bondum, Dogul * Yanda *Nanga: Naŋa, Bankan Tey (Walo), Ben Tey * Tebul Douyon and Blench (2005) report an additional variety, which is as yet unclassified: * Ana Tiŋa. Blench noted that 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

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

'' 4.3 synthesises classifications from Moran & Prokić (2013) and Hochstetler (2004). Moran & Prokić (2013) argue for 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. * Dogon **''Western division'' ***West Dogon **** Ampari Dogon **** Bunoge Dogon **** Mombo Dogon ****

Penange Dogon Penange Dogon is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is close to Ampari language, Ampari. The language was first described as distinct in 2011 by Prokhorov. The Penange Dogon speakers live in the village of Pinia (''péná)'' in Bandiagara Cercl ...

**** Tiranige Diga Dogon ***North Plateau Dogon **** Dogul Dom Dogon ****Yanda-Bondum-Tebul ***** Najamba-Kindige: ''Bondum Dom, Kindige, Najamba'' ***** Tebul Ure Dogon *****Yanda-Ana ****** Ana Tinga Dogon ****** Yanda Dom Dogon **''Eastern division'' ***Escarpment Dogon **** Donno So Dogon **** Tommo So Dogon **** Toro So Dogon: ''Ibi So, Ireli, Sangha So, Yorno So, Youga So'' ***Nangan Dogon **** Bankan Tey Dogon **** Ben Tey Dogon **** Nanga Dogon ***Plains Dogon ****

Jamsay Dogon Jamsay Dogon 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 ...

: ''Bama, Domno, Gono, Guru, Perge Tegu'' **** Toro Tegu Dogon **** Western Plains Dogon ***** Tengou-Togo Dogon: ''Gimri Kan, Tengu Kan, Tenu Kan, Togo Kan, Woru Kan'' ***** Tomo Kan Dogon

Comparative vocabulary

Comparison of basic vocabulary words of the Dogon languages,Heath, Jeffrey; McPherson, Laura; Prokhorov, Kirill; Moran, Steven. 2015.
Dogon Comparative Wordlist
'. Unpublished Manuscript. along with Bangime:Heath, Jeffrey. 2013. Bangime and Dogon Comparative Wordlists. m.s.

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages:

Notes

References

* * * * (report with wordlist) * * * * * * *

External links

Dogon and Bangime Linguistics

Dogon linguistics website

on Rogerblench.info (includes linguistic data and pictures)
Dogon Languages and Linguistics An (sic) Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography
Abbie Hantgan (2007) {{Authority control Languages of Burkina Faso Languages of Mali Subject–object–verb languages Language families