Balanta (or Balant or Bulanda) is a group of two closely related Bak languages of

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

spoken by the

Balanta people The Balanta ( Guinea-Bissau Creole and Portuguese: ''balanta''; ; lit. “those who resist” in Mandinka) are an ethnic group found in Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Senegal, Cape Verde and The Gambia. They are the second largest ethnic group of Guin ...

Description

Balanta is now generally divided into two distinct languages: Balanta-Kentohe and Balanta-Ganja.

Balanta-Kentohe

The Balanta-Kentohe (''Kəntɔhɛ'') language is spoken by about 423,000 people on the north central and central coast of

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...

(where as of 2006 it is spoken by about 397,000 people, many of whom can be found in the Oio Region) as well as in

the Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

. Films and portions of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

have been produced in Balanta-Kentohe. The ''Kəntɔhɛ'' dialect is spoken in the north, while the ''Fora'' dialect is spoken in the south. Ethnologue lists the alternative names of Balanta-Kentohe as Alante, Balanda, Balant, Balanta, Balante, Ballante, Belante, Brassa, Bulanda, Frase, Fora, Kantohe (Kentohe, Queuthoe), Naga and Mane. The Naga, Mane and Kantohe dialects may be separate languages.

Balanta-Ganja

Balanta-Ganja is spoken by 86,000 people (as of 2006) in the southwest corner of and the south of

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

Literacy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

is less than 1% for Balanta-Ganja. In September 2000, Balanta-Ganja was granted the status of a

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 ...

in Senegal, and as of then can now be taught in

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

. Ethnologue lists the alternative names of Balanta-Ganja as Alante, Balanda, Balant, Balante, Ballante, Belante, Brassa, Bulanda, Fjaa, Fraase (Fraasɛ). Its dialects are Fganja (Ganja) and Fjaalib (Blip).

Grammar

Balanta has case

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

es and

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

es alternatively interpreted as a

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

dependent on 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 ...

Phonology

The following are the phonemes of the Balanta dialects.

Consonants

Voiceless sounds are only heard in the Guinea Bissau dialect.

Vowels

Writing

In Senegal, Decree No. 2005-979 provides for an

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

of Balanta as follows:Gouvernement du Sénégal, Décret n° 2005-979. The distinction between tense and non-tense vowels is indicated by the addition of an acute diacritic above tense vowels. Pre-nasalised consonants are indicated by preceding their consonant with a homorganic nasal (i.e. mp, nt, ñj). Unvoiced consonants are represented by doubling voiced consonants (i.e. bb = /p/)

References

Relevant literature

* Creissels, Denis. 2016. A sketch of Ganja (Balant). In Friederike Lüpke (ed.), ''The Oxford guide to the Atlantic languages of West Africa''. Oxford University Press. * Mansaly, Jules. 2018. ''Dictionnaire des proverbes balant: Une langue du groupe atlantique-ouest de la famille niger-congo au Sénégal''. (Series: Verbal Art and Documentary Literature in African Languages Volume 37.) Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. * Migeod, F.W.H., '' The Languages of West Africa Volume II'' London 1913. * Westermann, D. & Bryan, M.A. ''The Languages of West Africa.'' Published for the International African Institute by Dawsons of Pall Mall, Folkestone & London 1970.

External links

Video about the Balanta language

Swadesh List for Balanta-Kentohe

Decree No. 2005-979 of 21 October 2005 relating to the spelling and the separation of words in Balanta
via the website of the ''Journal officiel'' {{Authority control Languages of Guinea-Bissau Languages of the Gambia Languages of Senegal Bak languages