The Dogon languages are a small closely-related

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...

that is spoken by the Dogon people of

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...

and may belong to the proposed Niger–Congo family. There are about 600,000 speakers of its dozen languages. They are

tonal languages Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...

, and most, like Dogul, have two tones, but some, like

Donno So Escarpment Dogon is a continuum of Dogon dialects of the Bandiagara Escarpment, including the standard language. There are three principal dialects: *Toro So ''Tɔrɔ sɔɔ'', called ''Bomu Tegu'' in the plains languages and also known as ''D ...

, have three. Their basic

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

is subject–object–verb.

External relationships

The evidence linking Dogon to the Niger–Congo family is weak, and their place within the family, assuming they do belong, is not clear. Various theories have been proposed, placing them in Gur, Mande, or as an independent branch, the last now being the preferred approach. The Dogon languages show no remnants of the

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...

system characteristic of much of Niger–Congo, leading linguists to conclude that they likely diverged from Niger–Congo very early.

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...

comments, and: The

Bamana Bambara or Bambarra may refer to: * Bambara people, an ethnic group, primarily in Mali ** Bambara language, their language, a Manding language ** Bamana Empire, a state that flourished in present-day Mali (1640s–1861) * ''Bambara'' (beetle), a ...

and Fula languages have exerted significant influence on Dogon, due to their close cultural and geographical ties. Blench (2015) suggests that Bangime and Dogon languages may have a substratum from a "missing" branch of Nilo-Saharan that had split off relatively early from Proto-Nilo-Saharan, and tentatively calls that branch "Plateau".

Internal classification

The Dogon consider themselves a single ethnic group, but recognise that their languages are different. In Dogon cosmology, Dogon constitutes six of the twelve languages of the world (the others being

Fulfulde Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that st ...

, Mooré, Bambara, Bozo and

Tamasheq Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others being Ta ...

). Jamsay is thought to be the original Dogon language, but the Dogon "recognise a myriad of tiny distinctions even between parts of villages and sometimes individuals, and strive to preserve these" (Hochstetler 2004:18). The best-studied Dogon language is the

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

language Toro So (Tɔrɔ sɔɔ) of Sanga, due to Marcel Griaule's studies there and because Toro So was selected as one of thirteen

national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...

s of Mali. It is mutually intelligible with other escarpment varieties. However, the plains languages—Tene Ka, Tomo Ka, and Jamsay, which are not intelligible with Toro so—have more speakers, and Jamsay and Tommo so are most conservative linguistically.

Calame-Griaule (1956)

Calame-Griaule appears to have been the first to work out the various varieties of Dogon. Calame-Griaule (1956) classified the languages as follows, with accommodation given for languages which have since been discovered (new Dogon languages were reported as late as 2005), or have since been shown to be mutually intelligible (as Hochstetler confirmed for the escarpment dialects). The two standard languages are asterisked. *Plains Dogon: Jamsai,* Tɔrɔ tegu, Western Plains (dialects: Togo kã, Tengu kã, Tomo kã) * Escarpment Dogon (dialects: Tɔrɔ sɔɔ,* Tɔmmɔ sɔɔ, Donno sɔ Kamma sɔ) *West Dogon: Duleri, Mombo, Ampari– Penange; Budu *North Plateau Dogon: Bondum, Dogul * Yanda *Nanga: Naŋa, Bankan Tey (Walo), Ben Tey * Tebul Douyon and Blench (2005) report an additional variety, which is as yet unclassified: * Ana Tiŋa. Blench noted that the plural suffix on nouns suggests that Budu is closest to Mombo, so it has been tentatively included as West Dogon above. He also notes that Walo–Kumbe is lexically similar to Naŋa; Hochstetler suspects it may be Naŋa. The similarities between these languages may be shared with Yanda. These are all extremely poorly known.

''Glottolog'' 4.3

'' Glottolog'' 4.3 synthesises classifications from Moran & Prokić (2013) and Hochstetler (2004). Moran & Prokić (2013) argue for a binary east-west split within Dogon, with Yanda Dom Dogon, Tebul Ure Dogon, and Najamba-Kindige as originally western Dogon languages that have become increasingly more similar to eastern Dogon languages due to intensive contact. *''Western division'' **West Dogon ***

Ampari Dogon Ampari Dogon, also known as ''Ambange'' or ''Ampari kora'', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no ...

*** Bunoge Dogon ***

Mombo Dogon Mombo Dogon is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. Helabo and Miambo are dialects. Until c. 2005 Ampari was considered a dialect. However, while Ampari understand Mombo, this appears to be because they visit the area yearly, and the Mombo cannot un ...

*** Penange Dogon *** Tiranige Diga Dogon **North Plateau Dogon *** Dogul Dom Dogon ***Yanda-Bondum-Tebul **** Najamba-Kindige: ''Bondum Dom, Kindige, Najamba'' **** Tebul Ure Dogon ****Yanda-Ana ***** Ana Tinga Dogon ***** Yanda Dom Dogon *''Eastern division'' **Escarpment Dogon *** Donno So Dogon *** Tommo So Dogon *** Toro So Dogon: ''Ibi So, Ireli, Sangha So, Yorno So, Youga So'' **Nangan Dogon ***

Bankan Tey Dogon 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 ...

***

Ben Tey Dogon 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 ...

*** Nanga Dogon **Plains Dogon *** Jamsay Dogon: ''Bama, Domno, Gono, Guru, Perge Tegu'' ***

Toro Tegu Dogon The Toro language, ''Tɔrɔ tegu'' 'Mountain speech', is a Dogon language spoken in Mali. It is closest to the prestige variety of Dogon, '' Jamsay tegu'', though speakers deny they are related and understand little of it. (They understand nothing ...

*** Western Plains Dogon ****

Tengou-Togo Dogon The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment is Mali are mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related va ...

: ''Gimri Kan, Tengu Kan, Tenu Kan, Togo Kan, Woru Kan'' **** Tomo Kan Dogon

Pre-Dogon language

Bangime language Bangime (; , or, in full, ) is a language isolate spoken by 3,500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali, who call themselves the ("hidden people"). Bangande is the name of the ethnicity of this community and their population grows at ...

( Baŋgɛri mɛ), formerly considered a divergent branch of Dogon, turns out not to be Dogon at all, and is possibly a language isolate (Blench 2005b). Blench believes that it is a remnant of the pre-Dogon languages of the area; the Dogon appear to have been in the area for many thousands of years. Additionally, Blench (2015) suggests that there is a Nilo-Saharan substratum in the Dogon languages, with the Nilo-Saharan substrate being a currently extinct branch of Nilo-Saharan that Blench tentatively refers to as "Plateau."

Comparative vocabulary

Comparison of basic vocabulary words of the Dogon languages,Heath, Jeffrey; McPherson, Laura; Prokhorov, Kirill; Moran, Steven. 2015.
Dogon Comparative Wordlist
'. Unpublished Manuscript. along with Bangime:Heath, Jeffrey. 2013. Bangime and Dogon Comparative Wordlists. m.s.

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages:

Notes

References

* Bendor-Samuel, John & Olsen, Elizabeth J. & White, Ann R. (1989) 'Dogon', in Bendor-Samuel & Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.) ''The Niger–Congo languages: A classification and description of Africa's largest language family'' (pp. 169–177). Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. * Bertho, J. (1953) 'La place des dialectes dogon de la falaise de Bandiagara parmi les autres groupes linguistiques de la zone soudanaise,' ''Bulletin de l' IFAN'', 15, 405–441. * . * Blench, Roger (2005b) 'Baŋgi me, a language of unknown affiliation in Northern Mali', ''OGMIOS: Newsletter of Foundation for Endangered Languages'', 3.02 (#26), 15-16. (report with wordlist) * Calame-Griaule, Geneviève (1956) ''Les dialectes Dogon''. ''Africa'', 26 (1), 62-72. * Calame-Griaule, Geneviève (1968) ''Dictionnaire Dogon Dialecte tɔrɔ: Langue et Civilisation''. Paris: Klincksieck: Paris. * Heath, Jeffrey (2008) ''A grammar of Jamsay''. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. * * * Plungian, Vladimir Aleksandrovič (1995) ''Dogon'' (Languages of the world materials vol. 64). München: LINCOM Europa * Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger–Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) ''African Languages – An Introduction.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11–42.

External links

Dogon and Bangime Linguistics

Dogon linguistics website

on Rogerblench.info (includes linguistic data and pictures)
Dogon Languages and Linguistics An (sic) Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography
Abbie Hantgan (2007) {{Authority control Languages of Burkina Faso Languages of Mali Subject–object–verb languages Language families