Koromfé is a

Gur language The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur or Mabia, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in most areas of Burkina Faso, and in south-central Mali, northeastern Ivor ...

spoken in a U-shaped area around the town of

Djibo Djibo is a town in northern Burkina Faso and the capital city of Soum Province. It is situated north of Ouagadougou and from the border with Mali. It was founded in the 16th century and became the capital of Djilgodji, before becoming dominate ...

, in the north of

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

and southeastern

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 ...

, bordering

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 ...

Country.

Geographic Distribution

The Koromfé language is spoken in the provinces of Bam and

Sanmatenga Sanmatenga is one of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso, located in its Centre-Nord Region. Its capital is Kaya. Departments Sanmatenga is divided into 10 departments: * Barsalogho Department * Boussouma Department * Dablo Department * Kaya ...

in the

Centre-Nord Region Centre-Nord (, "North Central") is one of thirteen administrative regions of Burkina Faso Per Law No.40/98/AN in 1998, Burkina Faso adhered to decentralization to provide administrative and financial autonomy to local communities. Most of the ...

, in the Provinces of

Loroum Loroum is one of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso, located in its Nord Region. Its capital is Titao. Education In 2011 the province had 192 primary schools and 12 secondary schools. Healthcare In 2011 the province had 20 health and social promot ...

and

Yatenga Yatenga is one of the provinces of Burkina Faso, located in the Nord Region (Burkina Faso), Nord Region of the country. In modern Yatenga, the most prominent city is Ouahigouya (also known as Waiguya). This city served as the capital of the kingdom ...

(

Titao Titao is a town located in the province of Loroum in Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory C ...

Subdistrict) in the Nord Region and in the

Soum Province Soum is one of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso, located in its Sahel Region. Its capital is Djibo. Departments Soum is divided into 9 departments: See also *Regions of Burkina Faso *Provinces of Burkina Faso *Departments of Burkina Faso Th ...

of the

Sahel Region Sahel (, "Sahel") is one of Burkina Faso's 13 administrative regions. It was created on 2 July 2001. The region's capital is Dori. Four provinces make up the region— Oudalan, Séno, Soum, and Yagha. This region is the northernmost part of ...

(

– Aribinda Subdistrict).

Dialects

Koromfé has two dialects: The western dialect (also known as Koromba or Kurumba) and the eastern dialect (Fulse or Folse). There are two major dialect areas, most conveniently termed East and West. The traditional centre of the Eastern area is Aribinda and of the Western area Pobé-Mengao. The western area is also known as Lorom (with two short close mid vowels), which should not be confused with the recently created province of

centred on

. (Titao is ethnically Kurumba.) The grammar of Rennison (1997) describes the Western dialect.

Phonology

The alveolar flap is an allophone of , which occurs as only word-initially and after nasal consonants. There also exists a spirantised allophone of , i.e. ; phonetic only occurs word-initially, after a nasal consonant, or between two ATR high vowels. Before nasal vowels the approximants and are nasalised, and the nasalised in slow, careful speech can even harden to . However, there is no phonemic palatal series of consonants in Koromfe. The vowel system comprises 5

ATR ATR may refer to: Medicine * Acute transfusion reaction * Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related, a protein involved in DNA damage repair Science and mathematics * Advanced Test Reactor, nuclear research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, ...

vowels and their

counterparts . All vowels occur both orally and (context-free) nasally, and long and short, giving 40 full vowels. There is also a schwa which alternates with zero and disappears in faster, casual speech. Koromfe is the only

, and one of only five Niger-Congo languages, listed in the

World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-RO ...

that is not tonal.

Writing system

Koromfé has no written form. A 2007 dictionary uses a IPA based orthography with "y" replacing "j".John R. Rennison; Micaïlou Konfé
''Dictionnaire Lorom koromfe – anglais / français / allemand''
2007.01.17

References

* {{Gur languages Gur languages