Escarpment Dogon is a continuum of Dogon dialects of the

Bandiagara Escarpment The Bandiagara Escarpment (, ) is a sandstone cliff in the Dogon country of Mali. It rises about above the lower sandy flats to the south, and has a length of approximately . The area of the escarpment is inhabited today by the Dogon people. ...

, including the

standard language A standard language (or standard variety, standard dialect, standardized dialect or simply standard) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification in its grammar, lexicon, writing system, or other features and that stands ...

. There are three principal dialects: *Toro So ''Tɔrɔ sɔɔ'', called ''Bomu Tegu'' in the plains languages and also known as ''Dɔgɔsɔ'', is the standard variety of Dogon, which is one of thirteen official languages of

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 ...

. *Tommo So '' Tɔmmɔ sɔ'', called ''Tombo so'' by Bondum Dom speakers, is spoken in a region from Kasa to

Bandiagara Bandiagara () is a small town and urban commune in the Mopti Region of Mali. The name translates roughly to "large eating bowl"—referring to the communal bowl meals are served in. Mainly on its Bandiagara Escarpment it has about 2,000 speakers ...

. It is more linguistically conservative than Toro So. The third dialect commonly listed is two subdialects without a common name: *Donno So ''Donno sɔ'' in the

area, and *Kamma So ''Kamma sɔ'' also known as ''Kamba So'', in the Kamba area. Hochstetler confirms that these are intelligible with each other, but not with the more populous varieties of Dogon on the neighboring plains. While Toro So was chosen as the official standard, because it has the most in common with the largest number of Dogon languages due to its central location, and is used in educational and official contexts,

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 ...

is the

prestige variety Prestige in sociolinguistics is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally co ...

and is the variety used for radio broadcasts.

Phonology

Consonants

* occurs, but only marginally. * can be realized as a fricative between vowel sounds . * can only occur among loanwords. * might occur as an allophone of when preceding .

Vowels

Tommo So

Tommo So (a bipartite name for the language signifying the ethnicity or the location of the speakers, 'Tommo' and a word for language, 'So') is part of the

Dogon Dogon may refer to: *Dogon people, an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa *Dogon languages The Dogon languages are a small closely related language family that is spoken by the Dogon people of Mali and may ...

language family comprising around twenty languages. The genetic relations of the languages of the Dogon country are complex, as geographical proximity does not necessarily involve genetic relation. "Despite the fact that Tommo So and Dogulu Dom are both spoken in the central area of Dogon country, the preliminary results of our current fieldwork suggest that Tommo So bears a closer relation to Najamba or Donno So."

Geographic distribution

Tommo sɔ is thought to be spoken on the plateau between

Douentza Douentza (Fulfulde: ''Duwayⁿsa'') is a town and urban commune in the Mopti Region of central Mali. The town lies 145 km east-northeast of Mopti on the RN16, a paved road that links Mopti and Gao. It is the administrative center of the Doue ...

and

by an estimated 40,000–60,000 people. In terms of neighboring languages, Tommo so is bordered by Najamba-Kidinge to the northwest, by Nanga and Jamsay to the east, by Tiranige Diga to the west, and by

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� ...

and Dogulu Dom to the south. Some dialects of Tommo So and Donno So are mutually intelligible. Donno So, based on fieldwork data, resembles an intermediate step between Tommo So and Toro So.

Notes

References

* . * *

External links

*
Tommo So folk songs
YouTube. 2013-21-07. Dogon languages Languages of Mali {{Dogon-lang-stub