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Bambara, also known as Bamanankan in the language itself, is a language spoken in Mali by as many six million people. The differences between Bambara and Dioula are minimal. Dioula is a language spoken or understood, by fewer numbers of people, in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and Gambia.
Bambara belongs to a group of closely-related languages called Manding, within the larger Mandé group. It is an SVO language and has two tones. It uses seven vowels a, e, é, i, o, ó and u (a like in car, e like in echo, é similar to the second e in echelon but more open, i like in India, o like in for, ó like the final sound in gnaw, and u like in the name Honolulu). Writing was introduced during the French occupation and alphabetisation is a major issue 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 "Griot" who are a mixture of storytellers, partysingers 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. Bambara is a national language of Mali, and also the most widely understood language in Mali. Mande (or Manding) is the name of a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka and Bambara. ...
Mandé is the name of an ethnic group or nation, as well as a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mendé, Yacouba, and Vai. ...
In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ...
Tone refers to the use of pitch in language to distinguish words. ...
Oral history is an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. ...
Griots, pronounced greeohs, are wordsmiths of West Africa who use poetry, proverbs, and rhythm to teach villagers about their history. ...
For the Jim Henson production, see The Storyteller Storytelling is the art of portraying in words, images, and sounds what has happened in real or imagined events. ...
Bambara has many local dialects. Some dialect variants: Somono, Segou, San, Beledugu, Ganadugu, Wasulu and Sikasso.
Dioula
Dioula is related to Bambara in a manner similar to the relation between American English and British English. It's probably the most used language for trade in West Africa. Bambara, also known as Bamanankan, is a language spoken in Mali by as many six million people. ...
American English is the form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...
British English is a term primarily used by people outside of the UK to refer to the form of the English language spoken in the British Isles. ...
West Africa is the region of western Africa generally considered to include these countries: Benin Burkina Faso Cameroon Côte dIvoire (Ivory Coast) Equatorial Guinea Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Chad, Mauritania, and...
Writing Since the seventies Bambara has mostly been written in the Latin alphabet, using some additional phonetic characters. The vowels are a, e, ɛ (formerly è), i, o, ɔ (formerly ò), u; accents can be used to indicate tonality. The former digraph ny is now written ɲ, ŋ or ñ (Senegal).
N'Ko is a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa; N’Ko means 'I say' in all Mande languages. Kante created N’Ko in response to what he felt were beliefs that Africans were a "cultureless people" since there was prior to this time, no indigenous African writing system for his language. N'ko came first into use in Kankan, Guinea as a Maninka alphabet and disseminated from there into other Mande-speaking parts of West Africa. The script is still in use for Bambara, although the Latin alphabet is much more common. The word N’Ko written in the N’Ko alphabet N’Ko is a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa; N’Ko means I say in all Mande languages. ...
Soulemayne Kante or Solomana Kante (1922) is an African writer and inventor of the NKo writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa. ...
1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ...
There are some newspapers in Bambara.
Grammar Bambara belongs to a group of closely-related languages called Manding (related to Mandinka, Mande language group). It is an SVO language and has two tones. The Mandinka are a people of West Africa. ...
Mande refers to: the Mandé people of western Africa the Mande or Mandinka people of western Africa any of the Mande languages the Mande or Mandinka language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ...
Tone refers to the use of pitch in language to distinguish words. ...
In mathematical linguistics Bambara is regarded with interest, since for only very few languages it was possible to show that they were not context-free. For Zurich German and Dutch the proof is based on sentence construction, whereas the proof for Bambara is based on word construction. In mathematics, logic and computer science, a formal language is a set of finite-length words (i. ...
Context Free is a small language for design grammars and an application for developing these grammars. ...
Italic text Swiss German (Schweizerdeutsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzertütsch, Schwizertitsch) is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland. ...
Bambara has no gender. Gender for a noun can be specified by adding a suffix, -ce for male and -muso for female. The plural is formed by attaching "-w" or "-u" to words. Sentences usually contain auxilary verbs.
Bambara uses postpositions, like "bolo" to indicate directions. Many postpositions are based on nouns, "bolo" also means hand.
Originally Bambara had several native conjunctions, but many of them have been replaced in everyday use by French borrowings, such as parce que ('because').
For example, some people might say: I ka kulosi ye jauni ye: "Your skirt is yellow" (using a derivation of the French word for yellow, jaune.)
However, one could also say: I ka kulosi ye neremuguman ye, also meaning "your skirt is yellow." The original Bambara word for yellow comes from "neremugu," mugu being flour made from nere, a seed from a long seed pod. Neremugu is often used in sauces in Southern Mali.
Examples - N'be bamanankan fo doni doni
- I speak a little bit of Bambara (litt: I aux positive Bambara speak little little)
- I te taa dumuni ke wa?
- Aren't you going to eat? (litt: you aux negative go eat action question particle)
Music Malian artists such as Salif Keita often sing in Bambara. Alpha Blondy often sings in Dioula. Salif Keita (born August 25, 1949) is an internationally recognized Afro-Pop singer and song writer from Mali. ...
Alpha Blondy (born 1 January 1953) is a reggae singer, born Seydou Koné in Dimbokoro, Côte dIvoire. ...
Bibliography - Bird, Charles & Kanté, Mamadou (1977) Bambara-English, English-Bambara student lexicon. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Linguistics Club.
- Kastenholz, Raimund (1998) Grundkurs Bambara (Manding) mit Texten (second revised edition) (Afrikawissenschaftliche Lehrbücher Vol. 1). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Konaré, Demba (1998) Je parle bien bamanan. Bamako: Jamana.
- Touré, Mohamed & Leucht, Melanie (1996) Bambara Lesebuch: Originaltexte mit deutscher und französischer Übersetzung = Chrestomathie Bambara: textes originaux Bambara avec traductions allemandes et françaises (with illustrations by Melanie Leucht) (Afrikawissenschaftliche Lehrbücher Vol. 11) . Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
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