The Dogon languages are a small closely-related
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
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 River, Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They spe ...
of
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
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 verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...
, and most, like
Dogul, have two tones, but some, like
Donno So
Escarpment Dogon is a continuum of Dogon dialects of the Bandiagara Escarpment, including the standard language. There are three principal dialects:
*Toro So ''Tɔrɔ sɔɔ'', called ''Bomu Tegu'' in the plains languages and also known as ''D ...
, 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 different languages employ different orders. C ...
is
subject–object–verb
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
.
External relationships
The evidence linking Dogon to the
Niger–Congo family is weak, and their place within the family, assuming they do belong, is not clear. Various theories have been proposed, placing them in
Gur,
Mande, or as an independent branch, the last now being the preferred approach. The Dogon languages show no 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 works ...
comments,
and:
The
Bamana
Bambara or Bambarra may refer to:
* Bambara people, an ethnic group, primarily in Mali
** Bambara language, their language, a Manding language
** Bamana Empire, a state that flourished in present-day Mali (1640s–1861)
* ''Bambara'' (beetle), a ...
and
Fula language
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stre ...
s have exerted significant influence on Dogon, due to their close cultural and geographical ties.
Blench (2015) suggests that
Bangime and Dogon languages may have a substratum from a "missing" branch of
Nilo-Saharan
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...
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
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stre ...
,
Mooré
The Mossi language (Mooré) is a Gur language of the Oti–Volta branch and one of two official regional languages of Burkina Faso. It is the language of the Mossi people, spoken by approximately 8 million people in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Cote d ...
,
Bambara,
Bozo
Bozo or bozo may refer to:
People
*Bozo people, a fishing people of the central Niger delta in Mali
** Bozo language, languages of the Bozo people
* Frédéric Bozo, history Professor at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle
* Bozo Mille ...
and
Tamasheq
Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others being Tamaja ...
). 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.
The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...
language
Toro So
Escarpment Dogon is a continuum of Dogon dialects of the Bandiagara Escarpment, including the standard language. There are three principal dialects:
*Toro So ''Tɔrɔ sɔɔ'', called ''Bomu Tegu'' in the plains languages and also known as ''D ...
(Tɔrɔ sɔɔ) of
Sanga, due to
Marcel Griaule'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. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
s of Mali. It is
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with other escarpment varieties. However, the plains languages—Tene Ka, Tomo Ka, and Jamsay, which are not intelligible with Toro so—have more speakers, and
Jamsay and
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 la ...
are most conservative linguistically.
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,* Tɔmmɔ sɔɔ, 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 a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for ...
'' 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.
*''Western division''
**West Dogon
***
Ampari Dogon
Ampari Dogon, also known as ''Ambange'' or ''Ampari kora'', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no ...
***
Bunoge Dogon
Budu Dogon or ''Bunoge'', also known as Korandabo, is a recently discovered Dogon language spoken in Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, ...
***
Mombo Dogon
Mombo Dogon is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. Helabo and Miambo are dialects.
Until c. 2005 Ampari was considered a dialect. However, while Ampari understand Mombo, this appears to be because they visit the area yearly, and the Mombo cannot un ...
***
Penange Dogon
***
Tiranige Diga Dogon
**North Plateau Dogon
***
Dogul Dom Dogon
The Dogul language, ''Dogul Dom'', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closest to Bondum Dogon
The Bondum language, ''Bondum Dom'', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closest to Dogul Dogon
The Dogul language, ''Dogul Dom'', is a D ...
***Yanda-Bondum-Tebul
****
Najamba-Kindige: ''Bondum Dom, Kindige, Najamba''
****
Tebul Ure Dogon
****Yanda-Ana
*****
Ana Tinga Dogon
Ana Dogon, or Ana Tiŋa, is a recently discovered Dogon language spoken in Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمه ...
*****
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
Bankan Tey Dogon, at first called Walo-Kumbe Dogon after the two main villages it is spoken in, also known as Walo and Walonkore, is a divergent, recently described Dogon language spoken in Mali. It was first reported online by Roger Blench, who ...
***
Ben Tey Dogon
Ben Tey Dogon, named after the village ''Been'' it is spoken in, is a divergent, recently described Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closely related to Bankan Tey and Nanga Dogon. It is said that elders in the Dogon village of ''Gawru'' also ...
***
Nanga Dogon
Naŋa dama, also known as Naŋa tegu, is a Dogon language spoken in Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية ...
**Plains Dogon
***
Jamsay Dogon: ''Bama, Domno, Gono, Guru, Perge Tegu''
***
Toro Tegu Dogon
The Toro language, ''Tɔrɔ tegu'' 'Mountain speech', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closest to the prestige variety of Dogon, '' Jamsay tegu'', though speakers deny they are related and understand little of it. (They understand nothing ...
***
Western Plains Dogon
The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment is Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمه ...
****
Tengou-Togo Dogon
The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment is Mali are mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related va ...
: ''Gimri Kan, Tengu Kan, Tenu Kan, Togo Kan, Woru Kan''
****
Tomo Kan Dogon
Pre-Dogon language
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 at ...
( Baŋgɛri mɛ), formerly considered a divergent branch of Dogon, turns out not to be Dogon at all, and is possibly a
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
(Blench 2005b). Blench believes that it is a remnant of the pre-Dogon languages of the area; the Dogon appear to have been in the area for many thousands of years.
Additionally, Blench (2015) suggests that there is a
Nilo-Saharan
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...
substratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
in the Dogon languages, with the Nilo-Saharan substrate being a currently extinct branch of Nilo-Saharan that Blench tentatively refers to as "Plateau."
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:
See also
*
Languages of Mali
Mali is a multilingual country. The languages spoken there reflect ancient settlement patterns, migrations, and its long history. ''Ethnologue'' counts more than 80 languages. Of these, French is the official language and Bambara is the most wide ...
*
Dogon word lists (Wiktionary)
Notes
References
*
Bendor-Samuel, John & Olsen, Elizabeth J. & White, Ann R. (1989) 'Dogon', in Bendor-Samuel & Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.) ''The Niger–Congo languages: A classification and description of Africa's largest language family'' (pp. 169–177). Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
* Bertho, J. (1953) 'La place des dialectes dogon de la falaise de Bandiagara parmi les autres groupes linguistiques de la zone soudanaise,' ''Bulletin de l'
IFAN Ifan may refer to:
People
*Ifan (given name), list of people with this name
* Ifan Evans (born 1983), Welsh rugby union player
* Wil Ifan
* The nickname of Riefian Fajarsyah of a former Seventeen member, disbanded by 2018 Sunda Strait tsunam ...
'', 15, 405–441.
* .
*
Blench, Roger (2005b) 'Baŋgi me, a language of unknown affiliation in Northern Mali', ''OGMIOS: Newsletter of Foundation for Endangered Languages'', 3.02 (#26), 15-16. (report with wordlist)
*
Calame-Griaule, Geneviève (1956) ''Les dialectes Dogon''. ''Africa'', 26 (1), 62-72.
*
Calame-Griaule, Geneviève (1968) ''Dictionnaire Dogon Dialecte tɔrɔ: Langue et Civilisation''. Paris: Klincksieck: Paris.
*
Heath, Jeffrey (2008) ''A grammar of Jamsay''. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
*
*
*
Plungian, Vladimir Aleksandrovič (1995) ''Dogon'' (Languages of the world materials vol. 64). München: LINCOM Europa
*
Williamson, Kay &
Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger–Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) ''African Languages – An Introduction.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11–42.
External links
Dogon and Bangime LinguisticsDogon linguistics websiteon Rogerblench.info (includes linguistic data and pictures)
Dogon Languages and Linguistics An (sic) Comprehensive Annotated BibliographyAbbie Hantgan (2007)
{{Authority control
Languages of Burkina Faso
Languages of Mali
Subject–object–verb languages
Language families