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The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogon languages, which are considered to constitute an independent branch of the Niger–Congo language family, meaning that they are not closely related to any other languages.
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. All together 13 of the indigenous languages of Mali have the legal status of national language.
The Dogon languages are a small closely-related language family that is spoken by the Dogon people of Mali and may belong to the proposed Niger–Congo family. There are about 600,000 speakers of its dozen languages. They are tonal languages, and most, like Dogul, have two tones, but some, like Donno So, have three. Their basic word order is subject–object–verb.
Escarpment Dogon is a continuum of Dogon dialects of the Bandiagara Escarpment, including the standard language. There are three principal dialects:
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. It is a major language in Koro, at the south end of the escarpment, and stretches as far north as Douentza. It is not mutually intelligible with other Plains Dogon languages, but is widely known as the prestige variety due to its use as the language of radio broadcasts. Dialects are Domno tegu, Gono tegu, Bama tegu, and Guru tegu; their degree of mutual intelligibility has not been recorded. Domno is the standard dialect, and considered the purest; Guru (Koro) is the dialect of that town.
Bangime is a language isolate spoken by 3,500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali, who call themselves the bàŋɡá–ndɛ̀. Bangande is the name of the ethnicity of this community and their population grows at a rate of 2.5% per year. The Bangande consider themselves to be Dogon, but other Dogon people insist they are not. Bangime is an endangered language classified as 6a - Vigorous by Ethnologue. Long known to be highly divergent from the (other) Dogon languages, it was first proposed as a possible isolate by Blench (2005). Research since then has confirmed that it appears to be unrelated to neighbouring languages. Heath and Hantgan have hypothesized that the cliffs surrounding the Bangande valley provided isolation of the language as well as safety for Bangande people. Even though Bangime is not related to Dogon languages, the Bangande still consider their language to be Dogon. Hantgan and List report that Bangime speakers seem unaware that it is not mutually intelligible with any Dogon language.
Dogon country is a region of eastern Mali and northwestern Burkina Faso populated mainly by the Dogon people, a diverse ethnic group in West Africa with diverse languages. Like the term Serer country occupied by the Serer ethnic group, Dogon country is vast, and lies southwest of the Niger River belt. The region is composed of three zones: the plateau, the escarpment and the Seno-Gondo plain.
Budu Dogon or Bunoge, also known as Korandabo, is a recently discovered Dogon language spoken in Mali. It was first reported online. The plural suffix on nouns is closest to Kolum so, suggesting it should be classified as a West Dogon language.
Bankan Tey Dogon, at first called Walo-Kumbe Dogon after the two main villages it is spoken in, also known as Walo and Walonkore, is a divergent, recently described Dogon language spoken in Mali. It was first reported online by Roger Blench, who reports that it is "clearly related to Nanga", which is only known from one report from 1953.
The Tebul language, also known as Tebul Ure, is a Dogon language spoken in Mali by the Tebul U. It was first reported under this name online by Roger Blench, who erroneously reported that it appears to be the same as a language called Oru Yille in the literature. This mistaken name instead means 'two words' in the Tebul language.
The Bondum language, Bondum Dom, is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closest to Dogul Dogon, though not enough for mutual intelligibility. Dialects are Kindjim and Nadjamba.
Ampari Dogon, also known as Ambange or Ampari kora, is a Dogon language spoken in Mali.
Mombo Dogon is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. Helabo and Miambo are dialects.
The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment is Mali are mutually intelligible. They are sometimes called the Kan Dogon because they use the word kan for varieties of speech. The dialects are:
Ben Tey Dogon, named after the village Been it is spoken in, is a divergent, recently described Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closely related to Bankan Tey and Nanga Dogon. It is said that elders in the Dogon village of Gawru also speak this language. Been is reported to have been settled from the village of Walo, and Ben Tey Dogon differs from Walo Dogon primarily from being under a different foreign influence, as Been village is surrounded by Jamsay-speaking villages, which Walo is not.
Yebu is one of the Savanna languages of Kaltungo LGA in Gombe State, northeastern Nigeria.
Bamako Sign Language, also known as Malian Sign Language, or LaSiMa, is a sign language that developed outside the Malian educational system, in the urban tea-circles of Bamako where deaf men gathered after work. It is used predominantly by men, and is threatened by the educational use of American Sign Language, which is the language of instruction for those deaf children who go to school.
Douentza Sign Language, or Dogon Sign Language is a community sign language spoken in Douentza and neighboring communities in the Dogon country in Mali. It is unknown how similar it may be to the nearby village sign language, Tebul Sign Language, but it may be unrelated to another sign language of the Dogon region, Berbey Sign Language. As of 2013, there is no school for the deaf in the area, but one is planned; the introduction of American Sign Language as the language of instruction may affect Douentza Sign. A video corpus has been collected by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics to document the pre-contact form of the language.
Penange Dogon is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is close to Ampari. The language was first described as distinct in 2011 by Prokhorov.
Dan Na Ambassagou is an ethnic Dogon militia in Mali. The militia was setup in 2016 to defend Dogon communities against attacks, which has led to a number of conflicts with members of the Fula community. They accuse the Fula of sympathizing with or sheltering Islamist militants in their villages. They are run by Youssouf Toloba.
References
- ↑ Tebul Sign Language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
