Dagomba language
| Dagbani | |
|---|---|
| Dagbanli | |
| Region | Ghana |
| Ethnicity | Dagbamba |
|
Native speakers
|
1,160,000 (2013 UNSD)https://www.ethnologue.com/country/gh/languages (date missing) |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | dagb1246 |
Dagbani (Dagbane), also known as Dagbanli and Dagbanle, is a Gur language spoken in Ghana which is closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Mampelle language, also spoken in Northern Region, Ghana. Dagbani is also similar to the other languages of the same subgroup spoken in this Region, Dagaare and Waala languages, spoken in Upper West Region of Ghana, and the Frafra language, spoken in Upper East Region of Ghana.
Its native speakers are estimated around 830,000 (2000). Dagbani is also widely known as a second language in Northern Ghana especially among acephalous tribes overseen by Ya-Na. It is a compulsory subject in Primary and Junior High School in the Dagbon Kingdom, which covers the eastern part of the region.
Dagbani has a major dialect split between Eastern Dagbani, centred on the traditional capital town of Yendi, and Western Dagbani centred on the Administrative capital of the Northern Region, Tamale. The dialects are however mutually intelligible and mainly consist of different root vowels in some lexemes, and different forms or pronunciations of some nouns, particularly those referring to local flora. The forms Dagbani and Dagbanli given above for the name of the language are respectively the Eastern and Western dialect forms of the name, but the Dagbani Orthography Committee resolved that “It was decided that in the spelling system <Dagbani> is used to refer to the ... Language, and <Dagbanli> ... to the life and culture”: in the spoken language each dialect used its form of the name for both functions.
Dagbani has eleven phonemic vowels: six short and five long vowels:
Olawsky (1999) has the schwa in place of /ɨ/, unlike other researchers on the language who use the more articulatorily higher /ɨ/. Allophonic variation based on tongue-root advancement is well attested for 4 of these vowels: [i] ~ [ɪ], [e] ~ [ɛ], [u] ~ [ʊ] and [o] ~ [ɔ].
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