Dagbani is a Gur language spoken in Ghana. Its native speakers are primarily of the Dagomba people, but Dagbani is also widely known as a first language in northern Ghana.
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Vowels
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].
[edit] Consonants
Dagbani is a tonal language in which pitch is used to distinguish words, as in gballi [ɡbálːɪ́] (High-High) 'grave' vs. gballi [ɡbálːɪ̀] (High-Low) 'zana mat'.[1] The tone system of Dagbani is characterized by two level tones and downstep (a lowering effect occurring between sequences of the same phonemic tone).
[edit] Writing system
Dagbani is written in a Latin alphabet, but the literacy rate is only 2–3%. The orthography currently used represents a number of allophonic distinctions; tone is not marked.
[edit] Alphabet
| a |
b |
ch |
d |
dz |
e |
ɛ |
f |
g |
gb |
ɣ |
h |
i |
j |
k |
kp |
l |
m |
n |
ny |
ŋ |
o |
ɔ |
p |
r |
s |
sh |
t |
u |
w |
y |
z |
ʒ |
’ |
[edit] Grammar
Dagbani is agglutinative, but with some fusion of affixes. The constituent order in Dagbani sentences is usually agent–verb–object.
[edit] References
- Blench, Roger (2006) 'Dagbani plant names' (unpublished circulation draft)
- Olawsky, Knut J. (1999). Aspects of Dagbani grammar, with special emphasis on phonology and morphology. München: LINCOM Europa.
- Olawsky, Knut J. (2003). "What is a word in Dagbani?". In R. M. W. Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. Word: A Cross-Linguistic Typology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 205–226.
- Olawsky, Knut (1997) 'Interaction of tone and morphology in Dagbani' (unpublished)
[edit] External links
