Bangime language

Bangime
Baŋgɛri-mɛ
Region	Dogon cliffs, Mali
Native speakers	2,000 (2005)
Language family	Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	bang1363
Bangi-me, among the Dogon languages

The Bangime /ˌbæŋɡiˈmeɪ/ (bàŋɡí–mɛ̀) language, or in full Bàŋgɛ́rí-mɛ̀, is a language isolate spoken by 1,500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali, who call themselves the bàŋɡá–ndɛ̀ ('hidden people'). Long known to be highly divergent from (other) Dogon languages, it was first proposed as a possible isolate by Blench (2005). Research since then has confirmed that it appears to be unrelated to neighboring languages.

Roger Blench, who discovered the language was not Dogon, notes,

which he dates to 3,000–4,000 years ago.

Bangime has been characterised as an anti-language, i.e. a language that serves to distinguish its speakers from a wider population, possibly associated with the Bangande villages having been a refuge for escapees from slave caravans.

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".

Bangime is spoken in 7 villages east of Karge, near Bandiagara, Mopti Region, central Mali (Blench 2007).

Bangime is an isolating language. The only productive affixes are the plural and a diminutive, which are seen in the words for the people and language above.

Vowels have an ±ATR distinction, which affects neighboring consonants, but unusually for such systems, there is no ATR vowel harmony in Bangime. The vowels are /i ɪ e ɛ a ɔ o ʊ u/. Vowels may be long or nasalized.