Senufo languages

The Senufo languages comprise ca. 15 lects (depending on the method of counting) spoken in the north of Ivory Coast, the southeast of Mali and the southwest of Burkina Faso. Some isolated lects are also spoken in the northwest of Ghana. The Senufo languages belong to the Gur sub-family of Niger-Congo languages. Garber (1987) estimates the total number of speakers of Senufo languages at some 1,5 million. The Senufo langauges are bounded to the west by Mande languages, to the south by Kwa languages, and to the north and east by other Gur languages.

The Senufo languages are typical Gur languages in that they have a noun class system and that verbs are marked for aspect. Concerning word order, Garber (1987) notes that the Senufo languages appear to have SOV rather than SVO (which is more common in Gur). Most Gur languages to the north of Senufo have a two tone downstep system, but the tonal system of the Senufo languages is mostly analysed as a three level tone system (High, Mid, Low).

References

  • Garber, Anne (1980) 'Word order change and the Senufo languages.' In Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 10, 1, 45-57.
  • Garber, Anne (1987) A Tonal Analysis of Senufo: Sucite dialect (Gur; Burkina Faso). PhD dissertation, Urbana: University of Illinois / Ann Arbor: UMI.
  • Mills, Elizabeth (1984) Senoufo phonology, discourse to syllabe (a prosodic approach) SIL publications in linguistics (ISSN 1040-0850), 72


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia article. Browse Wikipedia for more information.