The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 70 languages belonging to this group. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in Burkina Faso, southern Mali, northeastern Ivory Coast, the northern halves of Ghana and Togo, northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger; with the easternmost Gur language Baatonun, spoken in the extreme northwest of Nigeria.
The Senufo people, also known as Siena, Senefo, Sene, Senoufo, and Syénambélé, are a West African ethnolinguistic group. They consist of diverse subgroups living in a region spanning the northern Ivory Coast, the southeastern Mali and the western Burkina Faso. One sub-group, the Nafana, is found in north-western Ghana.
The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé peoples and include Maninka, Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Kpelle, Dioula, Bozo, Mende, Susu, and Vai. There are "60 to 75 languages spoken by 30 to 40 million people", chiefly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ivory Coast. The Mande languages have traditionally been considered a divergent branch of the Niger–Congo family; however that categorisation has been controversial.
Nafaanra is a Senufo language spoken in northwest Ghana, along the border with Ivory Coast, east of Bondoukou. It is spoken by approximately 61,000 people. Its speakers call themselves Nafana, but others call them Banda or Mfantera. Like other Senufo languages, Nafaanra is a tonal language. It is somewhat of an outlier in the Senufo language group, with the geographically-closest relatives, the Southern Senufo Tagwana–Djimini languages, approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) to the west, on the other side of Comoé National Park.
Supyire, or Suppire, is a Senufo language spoken in the Sikasso Region of southeastern Mali and in adjoining regions of Ivory Coast, where it is known as Shempire (Syenpire). In their native language, the noun sùpyìré means both "the people" and "the language spoken by the people".
Sucite is a Senufo language spoken in southwestern Burkina Faso by approximately 35,000 people. Sucite is a close neighbour of Supyire, spoken in southeastern Mali. Sucite is sometimes regarded as the northern extension of Supyire. The two dialects are, according to Garber (1987), ‘quite mutually intelligible’. Sometimes speakers of Sucite will even refer to themselves as speaking Supyire. Another closely related lect is Mamara.
Minyanka is a northern Senufo language spoken by about 750,000 people in southeastern Mali. It is closely related to Supyire. Minyanka is one of the national languages of Mali.
Mali is a multilingual country. The languages spoken there reflect ancient settlement patterns, migrations, and its long history. Ethnologue counts more than 80 languages. Of these, French is the official language and Bambara is the most widely spoken. Altogether 13 of the indigenous languages of Mali have the legal status of national language.
The Karaboro languages are spoken in Burkina Faso by approximately 65,000 people. They belong to the Senufo subfamily, but are separated from other Senufo languages by a small band of unrelated languages. Within Senufo they are thought to be most closely related to the Senari languages.
Palaka is a central Senufo language spoken by approximately 8,000 people in northern Ivory Coast. It is bordered to the south by Djimini, a southern Senufo language, and to the west by Nyarafolo, another Senufo language. North and east of the Palaka area live Dioula people.
The Suppire–Mamara languages form the northern branch of the Senufo language family and are mainly spoken in Mali. They comprise five different languages, totalling approximately 750,000 speakers. The Northern Senufo languages are separated from the Central Senufo languages by a small band of Mande speaking people. To the east and west, they are also bordered mainly by Mande languages like Bambara and Dioula, and they have been influenced considerably by those languages in both vocabulary and grammar.
The Nafana are a Senufo people living in the north-west of Ghana and the north-east of Côte d'Ivoire, in the area east of Bondoukou. They number about 45, 000 and they speak Nafaanra, a Senufo language. They are surrounded by Gur speakers to the north, the isolated Mande speaking Ligbi people to the east, and the Akan speaking Abron to the south.
The Djimini people of Côte d’Ivoire belong to the larger Senoufo group. They have a population of about 100,000 and live in the north-eastern area of Côte d’Ivoire, in Burkina Faso and Mali.
Ghana is a multilingual country in which about eighty languages are spoken. Of these, English, which was inherited from the colonial era, is the official language and lingua franca. Of the languages indigenous to Ghana, Akan is the most widely spoken.
Ivory Coast is a multilingual country with an estimated 78 languages currently spoken.
The Oti–Volta languages form a subgroup of the Gur languages, comprising about 30 languages of northern Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso spoken by twelve million people. The most populous language is Mõõré, the national language of Burkina, spoken by five million people.
Ega, also known as Egwa and Diés, is a West African language spoken in south-central Ivory Coast. It is of uncertain affiliation and has variously been classified as Kwa or an independent branch of Niger-Congo.
The Miyobe ([]) language is an unclassified Niger-Congo language of Benin and Togo.
Français tirailleur, also known as Petit nègre or Petinègue or Forofifon naspa, is a pidgin language that was spoken by West African soldiers and their white officers in the French colonial army approximately 1857–1954. It never creolized.
Gabriel Manessy was a French linguist who worked on Niger-Congo languages, especially the Gur languages.
