The Ligbi (or Ligby) people speak a

Mande language The Mande languages are a family of languages spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé peoples. They include Maninka (Malinke), Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Kpelle, Jula (Dioula), Bozo, Mende, Susu, and Vai. There are aro ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

, in the north-west corner of the

Brong-Ahafo Region The Brong-Ahafo region was a region in central Ghana. Brong-Ahafo was bordered to the north by the Black Volta river and to the east by the Lake Volta, and to the south by the Ashanti, Eastern and Western regions. The capital of Brong-Ahafo ...

. Ligbi is spoken by approximately 10,000 speakers (1988 GILLBT/ SIL). It is fairly closely related to Jula, Vai and Kono. A small population of Ligbi speakers (around 4,000) is reported to live in Ivory Coast (Vanderaa 1991). Ligbi is also known as Wela (Hwela) or Numu. The latter of these refers to a subsection of the Ligbi people; is Dyula for 'blacksmith'. (See

blacksmiths of western Africa The history of blacksmithing in West Africa dates back to around 1500 BCE, marking the emergence of skilled artisans whose mastery of ironworking was both revered and feared across the region. Blacksmiths held a unique position in West African s ...

.) The Ligbi area in Ghana is bordered to the west by

Nafaanra Nafaanra (sometimes written Nafaara, pronounced ), also known as Nafanan or Nafana, is a Senufo language spoken in northwest Ghana, along the border with Ivory Coast, east of Bondoukou. It is spoken by approximately people. Its speakers call th ...

, the Senufo language of the Nafana people. The Ligbi people have come to the area of

Begho Begho, also known historically as Nsoko or Insoco, was a city located in the Bono state of Ghana, located just south of its successor community, Hani. Begho was established as a trading entrepôt and cosmopolitan centre linking merchants from ac ...

(Bighu), an ancient trading town on the Tain river in Ghana, in the early 17th century before the Nafana. Ligbi has seven oral and seven nasal vowels. It is a tonal language with two level tones, High and Low. Syllables are of the form (C₁)V(C₂) or N (a

syllabic nasal A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''awful'', respectively. To represe ...

), where CV is the most common syllable type. C₁ can be any of the consonants, whereas the optional C₂ slot can have only nasals

homorganic In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from Latin and ) is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since they share the bilabial place of ...

with the following consonants, e.g., "nine houses," "ten houses." V (a vowel) alone occurs word-initial only in personal pronouns, some loan words, and names, e.g., "we have come."

Phonology

Consonants

* is between vowels. * and are between vowels. * , , and are nasalized between nasal vowels. * occurs in English and Arabic loanwords. * and only occur in ideophones.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Tones

Notes

References