Wali (Waale, Waalii) is a Mabia or

Gur language The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur or Mabia, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in most areas of Burkina Faso, and in south-central Mali, northeastern Ivor ...

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 ...

that is spoken mainly in and nearby the town of Wa, the capital town of the

Upper West Region The Upper West Region of Ghana is located in the north-western corner of Ghana and is bordered by Upper East Region to the east, Northern Region (Ghana), Northern Region to the south, and Burkina Faso to the west and north. The Upper West regional ...

. In the Upper West Region, there are two predominant ethnic groups, the Mole Dagbon (75.7%) and the Grusi (18.4%). The Wala (16.3%) of the Mole Dagbon and the Sissala (16%) of the Grusi are the major subgroupings in the region. The people of Wa are believed to have migrated from The Ancient Mali to settle in today's Wa, the western part of the Upper Region of Ghana.

Orthography

Wali is written in the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

using three orthographies: by the

Ghana Institute of Languages The Ghana Institute of Languages is located in Accra, the capital of Ghana, and teaches English, French, German, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian languages. It was established in 1961 by the first President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Ini ...

, by the

Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation The Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) is an organisation involved in literacy, education and development projects in minority language communities in Ghana, as well as Bible translation work. History GILLBT gre ...

(GILLBT), and by the

Baptist Mid-Missions Baptist Mid-Missions is an Independent Baptist mission agency based in Cleveland, Ohio. History Originally named The General Council of Co-operating Baptist Missions of North America, Inc., this mission board was established October 15, 1920. Its f ...

. The Baptist Mid-Missions system uses the basic alphabet with the addition of the apostrophe to mark different vowel quality, and the other two systems use the special letters ε, ɩ, ɔ, ʋ, and ŋ.

References

External links

English–Waalii Dictionary
published by SIL Oti–Volta languages Languages of Ghana {{gur-lang-stub