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Dagbani Language
Dagbani (or Dagbane), also known as Dagbanli or Dagbanle, is a Gur language spoken in Ghana and Northern Togo. Its native speakers are estimated around 1,170,000. Dagbani is the most widely spoken language in northern Ghana, specifically among the tribes that fall under the authority of the King of Dagbon, known as the '' Yaa-Naa''. Dagbon is a traditional kingdom situated in northern Ghana, and the Yaa-Naa is the paramount chief or king who governs over the various tribes and communities within the Dagbon kingdom. Dagbani is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Mampruli, Nabit, Talni, Kamara, Kantosi, and Hanga, also spoken in Northern, North East, Upper East, and Savannah Regions. It is also similar to the other members of the same subgroup spoken in other regions, including Dagaare and Wali, spoken in Upper West Region of Ghana, along with Frafra and Kusaal, spoken in the Upper East Region of the country. In Togo, Dagbani is spoken in the Savanes Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bono People
The Bono, also known as the Brong or Abron, are an Akan people of central Ghana and northeastern Ivory Coast. They speak the Bono Twi and form one of the largest matrilineal Akan groups. Historically, the Bono were the first Akan to develop a centralized state named Bono state with the core political centers located at Bono Manso and Begho. The Akan people trace their origin to the Bono state based on history and oral tradition. Traditionally, Bono is the hub of Akan culture as various key elements of the culture emanate from. Bono is often highlighted as the cradle of Akan civilisation. The Bono became prosperous at Bono state through gold discovery, trade and commerce from neighbouring partners and across Africa. As part of commercial transactions, gold dust were used as currency and gold weights as a measure of value. In 1471 when the first European-Portuguese visited Gold Coast (now Ghana), Bono Manso and Begho were an urban cities in West Africa. Begho at its peak had a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Griot
A griot (; ; Manding languages, Manding: or (in N'Ko script, N'Ko: , or in French spelling); also spelt Djali; or / ; ) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. Griots are masters of communicating stories and history orally, which is an African tradition. Instead of writing history books, List of oral repositories, oral historians tell stories of the past that they have memorized. Sometimes there are families of historians, and the oral histories are passed down from one generation to the next. Telling a story out loud allows the speaker to use poetic and musical conventions that entertain an audience. This has contributed to many oral histories surviving for hundreds of years without being written down. Through their storytelling, griots preserve and pass on the values of a tribe or people, such as the Senegalese, who are Muslims. The Wolof people in Senegal, many of whom cannot read or write, depend on griots to learn abou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoruba Language
Yoruba (, ; Yor. ) is a Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West (Nigeria), Southwestern and Middle Belt, Central Nigeria, Benin, and parts of Togo. It is spoken by the Yoruba people. Yoruba speakers number roughly 50 million, including around 2 million second-language or L2 speakers. As a pluricentric language, it is primarily spoken in a dialectal area spanning Nigeria, Benin, and Togo with smaller migrated communities in Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. Yoruba vocabulary is also used in African diaspora religions such as the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language, and various Afro-American religions of North America. Most modern practitioners of these religions in the Americas are not fluent in the Yoruba language, yet they still use Yoruba words and phrases for songs or chants—rooted in cultural traditions. For such pra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandinka Language
The Mandinka language (; Ajami: ), or Mandingo, is a Mande language spoken by the Mandinka people of northern Guinea-Bissau, the Casamance region of Senegal, and The Gambia where it is one of the principal languages. Mandinka belongs to the Manding branch of Mande and is similar to Bambara and Maninka/Malinké but with only 5 instead of 7 vowels, due to lacking the ATR distinction. The varieties spoken in Urban Gambia and Senegal borders on a pitch accent due to its proximity with non-tonal neighboring languages like Wolof. Phonology Mandinka is here represented by the variety spoken in Casamance. There is little dialectical diversity. Tone Mandinka has two tones, high and low. Unmodified nouns are either high tone on all syllables or low tone on all syllables. The definite suffix ''-o'' takes a low tone on high-tone nouns and a falling tone on low-tone nouns. It also assimilates any preceding short vowel, resulting in a long /oo/ with either low or falling tone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolof Language
Wolof ( ; , ) is a Niger–Congo language spoken by the Wolof people in much of the West African subregion of Senegambia that is split between the countries of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Unlike most other languages of its family, Wolof is not a tonal language. Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal, spoken natively by the Wolof people (40% of the population) but also by most other Senegalese as a second language. Wolof dialects vary geographically and between rural and urban areas. The principal dialect of Dakar, for instance, is an urban mixture of Wolof, French, and Arabic. ''Wolof'' is the standard spelling and may also refer to the Wolof ethnicity or culture. Variants include the older French , , or , which now typically refers either to the Jolof Empire or to jollof rice, a common West African rice dish. Now-archaic forms incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Gravrand
Father Henry Gravrand (France, 1921 – Abbey of Latrun, Palestine, 11 July 2003) was a French Catholic missionary to Africa and an anthropologist who has written extensively on Serer religion and culture. He was one of the leading pioneers of interfaith dialog and believed that African religion was the "'first covenant between God and man". His works about the Serer people are cited by other historians and scholars writing on Serer history, religion and culture, for instance Martin A. Klein, Charles Becker, Alioune Sarr, Marguerite Dupire, Issa Laye Thiaw, etc. Papa Massène Sene argues that his approach lacks scientific rigor and include fundamental linguistic and historical errors. Alioune Sarr noted that Gravrand reported an oral tradition describing what he called the "Battle of Troubang", a dynastic war between the two maternal royal houses of Ñaanco and the Guelowar, an off-shot and relatives of the '' Ñaanco'' (''Nyanthio'' or ''Nyanco'') maternal dynasty of Kaa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serer Language
Serer, often broken into differing regional dialects such as Serer-Sine and Serer-Saloum, is a language of the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo family spoken by 1.2 million people in Senegal and 30,000 in the Gambia as of 2009. It is the principal language of the Serer people, and was the language of the early modern kingdoms of Sine, Saloum, and Baol. Serer is primarily written in the Latin alphabet. Classification Serer is one of the Senegambian languages, which are characterized by consonant mutation. The traditional classification of Atlantic languages is that of Sapir (1971), which found that Serer was closest to Fulani. However, a widely cited misreading of the data by Wilson (1989) inadvertently exchanged Serer for Wolof. Dialects of Serer are Serer Sine (the prestige dialect), Segum, Fadyut-Palmerin, Dyegueme (Gyegem), and Niominka. They are mutually intelligible except for the Sereer spoken in some of the areas surrounding the city of Thiès. Not all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songhai Language
The Songhay, Songhai or Ayneha languages (, or ) are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, they are spoken in the cities of Timbuktu, Djenné, Niamey, Gao, Tillaberi, Dosso, Parakou, Kandi, Natitingou, Djougou, Malanville, Gorom-Gorom, In-Gall and Tabelbala. They have been widely used as a ''lingua franca'' in that region ever since the era of the Songhai Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao (east of Timbuktu) as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education. Some Songhay languages have little to no mutual intelligibility between each other. For example, Koyraboro Senni, spoken in Gao, is unintelligible to speakers of Zarma in Niger, according to ''Ethnologue''. However, Songhoyboro Ciine, Zarma, and Dendi have high mutual intelligibility within Niger. For linguists, a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hausa Language
Hausa (; / ; Hausa Ajami, Ajami: ) is a Chadic language spoken primarily by the Hausa people in the northern parts of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern parts of Niger, and Chad, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast. A small number of speakers also exist in Sudan. Hausa is a member of the Afroasiatic language family and is the most widely spoken language within the Chadic branch of that family. Despite originating from a non-tonal language family, Hausa utilizes differences in pitch to distinguish words and grammar. ''Ethnologue'' estimated that it was spoken as a first language by some 58 million people and as a second language by another 36 million, bringing the total number of Hausa speakers to an estimated 94 million. In Nigeria, the Hausa film industry is known as Kannywood. Classification Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languages group, which in turn is part of the Afroasiatic languages, Afro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulfulde Language
Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ; Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 36.8 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 18 countries in West and Central Africa. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic group within Niger–Congo, and more specifically to the Senegambian branch. Unlike most Niger-Congo languages, Fula does not have tones. It is spoken as a first language by the Fula people ("Fulani", ) from the Senegambia region and Guinea to Cameroon, Nigeria, and Sudan and by related groups such as the Toucouleur people in the Senegal River Valley. It is also spoken as a second language by various peoples in the region, such as the Kirdi of northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria. Nomenclature Several names are applied to the language, just a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
