| Dogon Languages |
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Information AboutDogon Languages |
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The place of Dogon inside the Niger-Congo Languages is not clear. Various theories have been proposed, placing them in the Gur , the Mande or an independent branch, the latter now being the preferred theory. The Dogon languages show few remnants of a Noun Class system (one example is that human nouns take a distinct plural suffix), leading linguists to conclude that Dogon is likely to have diverged from Niger-Congo very early. The basic word order is Subject Object Verb . The Bambara and Fula Language s have exerted significant influence on Dogon, due to their close cultural and geographical ties. Dialects Dogon has traditionally been described as a single language; however, Hochstetler et. al. (2004) estimated that the Dogon language family consists actually of at least 17 highly internally divided languages, and later fieldwork by Rogber Blench tends to support this. Bangi-me (Bangeri-me), formerly considered a northwestern Dogon dialect, falls entirely outside the group, according to Blench (2005b). The best-studied Dogon language is Toro So (Tɔrɔ Sɔɔ), the speech variety of Sanga , due to Marcel Griaule 's studies there and due to the fact that Toro So has been selected by the Malian government for development. However, the plains languages - tene Ka, Tomo Ka, and Jamsay - have the largest population, and Jamsay and Tombo are considered the most conservative varieties. REFERENCES
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