Dan is a
Southern Mande language spoken primarily in
Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...
(~800,000 speakers) and
Liberia
Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...
(150,000–200,000 speakers). There is also a population of about 800 speakers in
Guinea
Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...
. Dan is a
tonal language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasi ...
, with 9 to 11 contour and register tones, depending on the dialect.
Alternative names for the language include Yacouba or Yakubasa, Gio, Gyo, Gio-Dan, and Da. Dialects are Gio (Liberian Dan), Gweetaawu (Eastern Dan), Blowo (Western Dan), and Kla. Kla is evidently a distinct language.
Phonology
A sillable is minimally /V/ or /ŋ/, and maximally /ClVV/ or /ClVŋ/.
Vowels
Color coding:
Only in Eastern Dan when in the position of extra-high tone
Only in Liberian Dan
Consonants
Only in Liberian Dan
Not in Western Dan
Not in Liberian Dan
* all consonants are nasalized in nasal feet
* occurs only as a syllable or a syllable coda and has been treated as a vowel. it carries tone.
* is heard as when preceded by alveolar or palatal consonants.
* Consonant combinations are heard as lateral fricative sounds .
Tones
Dan has five level tones and three less-common contour tones on single morae - and
Writing system
The orthography of Liberia includes this alphabet:
Tones are marked as follows:
extra high tone: a̋;
high tone: á;
medium tone: ā;
low tone: à;
extra low tone: ȁ;
high drop tone: â;
extra low hanging tone: aʼ.
The digraphs keep the same values as in the spelling of 1982, and the nasal vowels are also indicated by appending the letter n after the letter of the vowel .
References
Further reading
*
External links
English-Dan Online Dictionary
Mande languages
Languages of Ivory Coast
Languages of Guinea
Languages of Liberia
Dan people
Long stubs with short prose
{{Mande-lang-stub