Bambara language
| Bambara | |
|---|---|
| Bamanankan | |
| Native to | Mali |
| Region | central southern Mali |
| Ethnicity | Bambara |
|
Native speakers
|
4 million (2012) 10 million L2 speakers Spoken to varying degrees by 80% of the population of Mali |
| Latin, N'Ko | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | bm |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | bamb1269 |
The Bambara (Bamana) language, Bamanankan, is a lingua franca and national language of Mali spoken by perhaps 15 million people, 5 million Bambara people and about 10 million second-language users. It is estimated that about 80 percent of the population of Mali speak Bambara as a first or second language. It has a subject–object–verb clause structure and two lexical tones.
Bambara is a variety of a group of closely related languages called Manding, whose native speakers trace their cultural history to the medieval Mali Empire. Varieties of Manding are generally considered (among native speakers) to be mutually intelligible – dependent on exposure or familiarity with dialects between speakers – and spoken by 30 to 40 million people in the countries Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Gambia. Manding is part of the larger Mandé family of languages.
It uses seven vowels a, e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ and u (the letters approximate their IPA equivalents). Writing began during the French occupation, and the first orthography was introduced in 1967. Literacy is limited, especially in rural areas. Although written literature is only slowly evolving (due to the predominance of French as the "language of the educated"), there exists a wealth of oral literature, which is often tales of kings and heroes. This oral literature is mainly tradited by the "Griots" (Jeliw in Bambara) who are a mixture of storytellers, praise singers and human history books who have studied the trade of singing and reciting for many years. Many of their songs are very old and are said to date back to the old kingdom of Mali.
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Wikipedia