The Lyélé language (Lele) is spoken in the
Sanguié Province
Sanguié is one of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso, located in its Centre-Ouest Region. In 2019 the population was 391,520. Its capital is Réo.
Lyele is a major first language in this province.
Education
In 2011 the province had 218 primary s ...
of
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...
by approximately 130,000 people known as Lyéla, Léla, Gourounsi or
Gurunsi
Gurunsi or Grusi may refer to:
* Gurunsi people, a people of northern Ghana and south and central Burkina Faso
** Gurunsi languages
The Grũsi or Gurunsi languages, also known as the East Mabia languages,Bodomo, Adams. 2020.Mabia: Its Etymologic ...
. It is spoken in the towns of Réo, Kyon, Tenado, Dassa, Didyr, Godyr, Kordié, Pouni and Zawara. The language is also sometimes known by the wider term
Gurunsi
Gurunsi or Grusi may refer to:
* Gurunsi people, a people of northern Ghana and south and central Burkina Faso
** Gurunsi languages
The Grũsi or Gurunsi languages, also known as the East Mabia languages,Bodomo, Adams. 2020.Mabia: Its Etymologic ...
.
Syntactically, Lyélé is a SVO language with postpositions. Determiners and adjectives are placed after the noun.
Unlike most other languages, Lyélé has only one paradigm for all pronouns, including demonstratives, interrogatives, and relatives. Tone can sometimes differentiate between an interrogative and a demonstrative, but this may be a result of interrogative intonation rather than tone marked on the word itself.
Writing system
The nasalization is indicated with the
tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...
on the vowel nasalized .
Tones are indicated using accents, except for the midtone :
* grave accent for low tone;
* the acute accent for the high tone;
* caron for rising tone;
* the circumflex accent for the falling tone.
[Nikiema 1993 does not list the circumflex accent but it is used in the 2001 Bible translation published by Wycliffe Bible Translators.]
References
External links
Database of audio recordings in Lyélé – basic Catholic prayersGlobal Recordings Network: Lyélé Language
Gurunsi languages
Languages of Burkina Faso
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