Mandé Languages
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Mande languages are a family of languages spoken in several countries in
West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
by the
Mandé peoples The Mandé peoples are a linguistic grouping of those African nations who speak Mande languages. The various Mandé-speaking nations are concentrated in the western regions of West Africa. The Mandinka or Malinke, a western Mandé nation, a ...
. They include Maninka (Malinke),
Mandinka Mandinka, Mandika, Mandinkha, Mandinko, or Mandingo may refer to: Media * Mandingo (novel), ''Mandingo'' (novel), a bestselling novel published in 1957 * Mandingo (film), ''Mandingo'' (film), a 1975 film based on the eponymous 1957 novel * ''Man ...
, Soninke, Bambara, Kpelle, Jula (Dioula),
Bozo Bozo or bozo may refer to: People *Bozo people, a fishing people of the central Niger delta in Mali **Bozo language, languages of the Bozo people *Frédéric Bozo, history professor at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle *Bozo Miller ( ...
, Mende, Susu, and Vai. There are around 60 to 75 languages spoken by 30 to 40 million people, chiefly in
Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...
,
Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...
,
Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
,
The Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...
,
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 ...
,
Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...
,
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
,
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 ...
,
Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) 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 city and e ...
and also in southern
Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...
, northern
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 ...
, northwestern
Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
and northern
Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...
. The Mande languages show a few lexical similarities with the Atlantic–Congo language family, so together they have been proposed as parts of a larger Niger–Congo language family since the 1950s. However, the Mande languages lack the noun-class morphology that is the primary identifying feature of the Atlantic–Congo languages. Accordingly, linguists increasingly treat Mande and Atlantic–Congo as independent language families.


History

Various opinions exist as to the age of the Mande languages.
Valentin Vydrin Valentin Feodosyevich Vydrin (also spelled Vydrine; ; born February 6, 1961, Belogorka, Leningrad Oblast) is a Russian Africanist. Until 2011, he was the head of the Department of Ethnography of African Peoples of the Kunstkamera, Professor, Do ...
concluded that "the Mande
homeland A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethnic natio ...
at the second half of the 4th millennium BC was located in Southern
Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...
, somewhere to the North of 16° or even 18° of Northern latitude and between 3° and 12° of Western longitude.". That is now
Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...
and southern
Western Sahara Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...
. If Mande's linguistic affiliation were clearer that would help inform its history. For example,
Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...
suggested that the Niger-Congo group, which in his view includes the Mande language family, began to break up at around 7000 years BP. Its speakers would have practised a
Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
culture, as indicated by the Proto-Niger-Congo words for "cow", "goat" and "cultivate".


Early scholarship

The group was first recognized in 1854 by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, in his ''
Polyglotta Africana ''Polyglotta Africana'' is a study published in 1854 by the German missionary Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle (1823–1902), in which the author compares 280 words from 200 African languages and dialects (or about 120 separate languages according to tod ...
''. He mentioned 13 languages under the heading ''North-Western High-Sudan Family, or Mandéga Family of Languages''. In 1901,
Maurice Delafosse Maurice Delafosse (20 December 1870 – 13 November 1926) was a French ethnographer and colonial official who also worked in the field of the languages of Africa. In a review of his daughter's biography of him he was described as "one of the most ...
made a distinction of two groups. He speaks of a northern group ''mandé-tan'' and a southern group ''mandé-fu''. The distinction was basically done only because the languages in the north use the expression ''tan'' for ten, and the southern languages use ''fu''. In 1924, Louis Tauxier noted that the distinction is not well founded and there is at least a third subgroup he called ''mandé-bu''. It was not until 1950 that André Prost supported that view and gave further details. In 1958, Welmers published an article called "The Mande Languages," where he divided the languages into three subgroups: North-West, South and East. His conclusion was based on
lexicostatistic Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
research.
Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...
followed that distinction in his ''The Languages of Africa'' (1963). Long (1971) and Gérard Galtier (1980) follow the distinction into three groups but with notable differences.


Classification


Relation to Niger-Congo

Mande does not share the
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
characteristic of most of the Niger–Congo family, such as the noun-class system. Nor are there many recognized cognates in core vocabulary between Mande and Niger-Congo. Accordingly, Dimmendaal (2008) argues that the evidence for inclusion is slim, and that for now Mande is best considered an independent family. The same view is held by Güldemann (2018). Without definitively concluding that Mande is or is not a member of Niger–Congo, Vydrin (2016) notes that proto-Mande basic vocabulary fits relatively well with Niger–Congo, and that typological criteria such as the absence of a noun-class system should not be taken as probative; he notes that "If the position of Mande within Niger-Congo is confirmed... Mande will certainly represent the most ancient branching of the phylum". Blench regards it as an early branch that diverged before the noun-class morphology developed. Dwyer (1998) compared it with other branches of Niger–Congo and finds that they form a coherent family, with Mande being the most divergent of the branches he considered.


Internal classification

The diversity and depth of the Mande family is comparable to that of Indo-European. Eleven low-level branches of Mande are nearly universally accepted: Southern Mande (Dan etc.), Eastern Mande (Bisa, Boko etc.), Samogo,
Bobo Bobo may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Comic strips * ''Bobo'' (Belgian comics) * ''Bobo'' (Italian comics) * ''Bobo'' (Swedish comics) Fictional characters * Bobo the Bear, in ''The Muppets'' series * Professor Bobo, from ''My ...
, Soninke–Bozo, Southwestern Mande (Mende, Kpelle, Loma etc.), Soso–Jalonke, Jogo, Vai–Kono, Mokole and Manding (Bambara, Djula etc.). It is also widely accepted that these form two primary branches, the first two as Southeastern Mande and the rest as Western Mande. Most internal Mande classifications are based on
lexicostatistics Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
, for example, that based on the
Swadesh list A Swadesh list () is a compilation of cultural universal, tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. That is, a Swadesh list is a list of forms and concepts which all languages, without exception, have terms for, such as ...
. An alternative classification from Kastenholz (1996) is based on lexical innovations and comparative linguistics. Kastenholz warns however that this is not based on objective criteria and thus is not a genealogical classification in the narrow sense. The following classification is acompilation of both. * Mande ** Southeast Mande *** Southern Mande (Dan, Mah, etc.) *** Eastern Mande (Bisa, Busa, etc.) ** West Mande *** Central West (Manding–Kpelle) **** Central Mande ***** Susu–Yalunka ***** Manding–Jɔgɔ ****** Jogo languages ****** Manding–Vai ******* Vai–Kono ******* Manding–Mokole ********
Manding languages The Manding languages (sometimes spelt Manden) are a dialect continuum within the Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo family spoken in West Africa. Varieties of Manding are generally considered (among native speakers) to be mutually intelligible ...
********
Mokole languages The Mokole languages are a small group of Mande languages of Guinea and Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and ...
**** Southwest Mande (Mende, Kpelle, etc.) *** Northwest (Samogo–Soninke) **** (Jowulu) **** Northwest proper *****
Samogo languages The Samogo languages are a small group of Mande languages of Mali and Burkina Faso. *Samogo **Seenku language, Seenku (Seeku, Sembla, Seemogo) **Duun ***Dzuun language, Dzuun (East Duun). Dialects: Kpango (Kpan, Samoro-guan), Dzùùngoo (Samog ...
(partial: Duun–Sembla) ***** Soninke–Bobo ****** Bɔbɔ ****** Soninke–Bozo Vydrin (2009) differs somewhat from this: he places Soso-Jalonke with Southwestern (a return to André Prost 1953); Soninke-Bozo, Samogho and Bobo as independent branches of Western Mande, and Mokole with Vai-Kono. Most classifications place Jo within Samogo.


Morphosyntactic features

Mande languages do not have 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 or verbal extensions of the
Atlantic–Congo languages The Atlantic–Congo languages make up the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from ...
and for which the
Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...
are so famous, but
Bobo Bobo may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Comic strips * ''Bobo'' (Belgian comics) * ''Bobo'' (Italian comics) * ''Bobo'' (Swedish comics) Fictional characters * Bobo the Bear, in ''The Muppets'' series * Professor Bobo, from ''My ...
has
causative In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...
and
intransitive In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb, aside from an auxiliary verb, whose context does not entail a transitive object. That lack of an object distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additi ...
forms of the verb. Southwestern Mande languages and Soninke have initial
consonant mutation Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of al ...
. Plurality is most often marked with a clitic; in some languages, with
tone Tone may refer to: Visual arts and color-related * Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory * Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color * Toning (coin), color change in coins * ...
, as for example in Sembla. Pronouns often have alienable–inalienable and inclusive–exclusive distinctions.
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 languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
in transitive clauses is
subject Subject ( "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness, or ...
auxiliary Auxiliary may refer to: In language * Auxiliary language (disambiguation) * Auxiliary verb In military and law enforcement * Auxiliary police * Auxiliaries, civilians or quasi-military personnel who provide support of some kind to a military se ...
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an a ...
verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...
. Mainly
postposition Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...
s are used. Within noun phrases, possessives come before the noun, and adjectives and plural markers after the verb;
demonstrative Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning ...
s are found with both orders.


Comparative vocabulary

Below is a sample basic vocabulary of reconstructed proto-forms: Below are some cognates from D. J. Dwyer (1988) ( is or ): Note that in these cognates: *'saliva' = 'mouth'+'water' *'milk' = 'breast'+'water' *'buck (he-goat)' = 'goat'+'male' *'ram' = 'sheep'+'male'


Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages:


See also

* List of Proto-Mande reconstructions (Wiktionary) * List of Proto-West Mande reconstructions (Wiktionary) *
Manding languages The Manding languages (sometimes spelt Manden) are a dialect continuum within the Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo family spoken in West Africa. Varieties of Manding are generally considered (among native speakers) to be mutually intelligible ...
* Mandé *
Mende language Mende (''Mɛnde yia'') is a major language of Sierra Leone, with some speakers in neighboring Liberia and Guinea. It is spoken by the Mende people and by other ethnic groups as a regional lingua franca in southern Sierra Leone. Mende is a tona ...


References


Further reading

* * * * * * *


External links


LANGUES MANDE

Mande page of the Journal of West African Languagesintroduction)
{{Authority control Language families Niger–Congo languages