Dogon (language)
| Dogon | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Mali | |
| speaker | 600,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
nic (other Niger-Congo languages) |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
dba, dbg, dbu, dds, djm, dkl, dtk, dtm, dts, dtt |
|
The Dogon is, depending on your view, a single language or sub-family of languages of the Niger-Congo languages , which forms its own primary branch. Dogon is spoken by around 600,000 people in Mali and Burkina Faso .
Dogon within the Niger-Congo
All attempts to assign the Dogon language to other subgroups of the Niger-Congo (e.g. the Gur or Mande ) have so far failed, so it is now regarded as an independent primary branch of the Niger-Congo . The center of the Dogon culture is the Dogon country in central Mali with the capital Bandiagara (about 60 km east of the city of Mopti on the Niger ). The Dogon have long been able to maintain their independent African religion against Islam, but now more and more villages are Islamized . Many Dogon - especially the men and young people - also speak the national language Bambara (a Mande language ).
Single language or language group?
Whether the Dogon is a single language with many dialects , some of which are quite different, or a small language family with - depending on the author - around five to twenty languages can hardly be decided definitively. In the standard works Bendor-Samuel 1989 and Heine-Nurse 2000 it is regarded as a language. The Dogon is divided into five main dialect groups and three smaller individual dialects (according to Heine-Nurse 2000):
Classification of the Dogon dialects
-
Dogon
- Level : Jamsay Tegu, Toro Tegu, Tene Ka, Tomo Kan
- Falaise : Toro Soo, Tombo Soo, Kamba Soo
- West : Duleri Dom, Ejenge Dom
- Northwest : Bangeri Me ( see below )
- North plateau: Bondum Dom, Dogul Dom
- Yanda Dom
- Oru Yille
- Naya Tegu
Recently, however, Hochstetler (2004) has taken the view that the Dogon consists of at least 17 distinctly different languages ; recent field research by Roger Blench seems to support this opinion. According to Blench (2005, 2007), Bangeri Me, originally classified as a north-western dialect, is not a Dogon dialect, but an isolated language that does not belong to the Niger-Congo languages.
The best studied Dogon variety is the Toro Soo spoken in Sanga , due to the studies carried out there by Marcel Griaule and the particular interest of the Mali government in this dialect. Tene Ka, Tomo Ka and Jamsay Tegu have the greatest distribution; Jamsay Tegu and Tombo Soo are considered to be the most original dialects.
Linguistic characteristics
The nominal class system of the Proto-Niger-Congo is preserved in remnants in the Dogon, but there are no class prefixes . Terms for human beings have special plural suffixes . Dogon is a tonal language with two tonal levels. There is a basic paradigm of personal pronouns from which object and possessive pronouns are derived. The sentence position is SOV (subject-object-verb). The noun comes before its attribute , possessive , numerals and demonstrative .
The neighboring languages Bambara (a Mande language ) and Fulfulde (an Atlantic language ) have had significant influence on the Dogon because of their geographical and cultural connection.
Greetings
Like many other African languages, the Dogon has complex greetings that are used even in casual encounters. A standard example:
- aga po seo? "How are you?" The person addressed answers seo! "it goes well)"
- oumana seo? "How is your family?" Seo!
- ounou seo? "How are your kids?" Seo!
- yahama seo? "How is your wife?" Seo!
Then the roles are swapped, the answerer asks the questions. Of course, the formulations are adapted to the age and gender of the person addressed, the questions always start with the higher ranking person.
More information on linguistic details in the article Niger-Congo Languages .
literature
African languages
- Joseph Greenberg: The Languages of Africa. Mouton, The Hague and Indiana University Center, Bloomington 1963.
- Bernd Heine and others (ed.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981.
- Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse (eds.): African Languages. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press 2000.
Especially for the Dogon
- John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.): The Niger-Congo Languages: A Classification and Description of Africa's Largest Language Family. University Press of America, Lanham / New York / London 1989.
Therein: John Bendor-Samuel, Elizabeth Olsen, Ann R. White: Dogon. - J. Bertho: La place des dialectes dogon de la falaise de Bandiagara parmi les autres groupes linguistiques de la zone soudanaise . In: Bulletin de l'IFAN , 15, 1953, pp. 405-441.
- Roger Blench: A survey of Dogon languages in Mali: Overview . In: OGMIOS: Newsletter of Foundation for Endangered Languages , 3.02 (# 26), 2005, pp. 14-15, ogmios.org
- Roger Blench: Baŋgi me: a language of unknown affiliation in Northern Mali . In: OGMIOS: Newsletter of Foundation for Endangered Languages , 3.02 (# 26), 2005, pp. 15–16 (also reprinted in: Mother Tongue , XII, 2007.)
- Geneviève Calame-Griaule: Les dialectes Dogon . In: Africa, 26 (1), 62-72, 1956.
- Geneviève Calame-Griaule: Dictionnaire Dogon Dialecte tɔrɔ: Langue et Civilization. Klincksieck, Paris 1968.
- J. Lee Hochstetler, JA Durieux, EIK Durieux-Boon: Sociolinguistic Survey of the Dogon Language Area . SIL International, 2004, sil.org (PDF; 2.9 MB)
- Vladimir Andreevič Plungjan: Dogon . In: Languages of the World Materials , vol. 64. Lincom Europa, Munich 1995.