Koyra Chiini (koyra ʧiini, literally "town language"), or Western Songhay, is a variety of Songhai in Mali, spoken by about 200,000 people (as of 1999) along the Niger River in Timbuktu and upriver from it in the towns of Diré, Tonka, Goundam, and Niafunké, as well as in the Saharan town of Araouane to its north. In this area, Koyra Chiini is the dominant language and the lingua franca, although minorities speaking Hassaniya Arabic, Tamashek, and Fulani are found. Djenné Chiini (ʤɛnnɛ ʧiini), the Songhai variety spoken in Djenné, is mutually comprehensible, but has noticeable differences with Koyra Chiini proper - in particular, two extra vowels (ɛ and ɔ) and syntactic differences related to focalization. East of Timbuktu, Koyra Chiini gives way relatively abruptly to another Songhai language, Koyraboro Senni. ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ... SIL International is a non-profit, faith-based, scientific organization with the main purpose to study, develop and document lesser-known languages for the purpose of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting world literacy and aiding minority language development. ... The Songhay languages are a group of closely related languages/dialects centered on the Niger river, widely used as a lingua franca, particularly thanks to the medieval Songhay Empire. ... 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Map of Niger river. ... See Timbuktu (novel) for the book by Paul Auster. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Hassaniya is a dialect of Arabic derived from the Arabic spoken by the Beni Hassan tribe, who extended their authority over most of the Mauritanian Sahara between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. ... Tuareg or Tamasheq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq is a Berber language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso (with a few speakers, the Kinnin, even in Chad[1].) They are quite mutually comprehensible, and are commonly regarded as a... The Fula language is a language of West Africa, spoken by the Fula people from Senegal to Cameroon and Sudan. ... The location of Djenné within Mali Djenné (also Dienné or Jenne) is a city on the Bani River in southern Mali with a population of about 12,000 (in 1987). ... This article needs cleanup. ...

Unlike most Songhai languages, Koyra Chiini has no phonemic tones, and has Subject Verb Object word order rather than Subject Object Verb. It has changed original z to j. This article or section uses Ruby annotation. ... In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ... In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the general order of words in a languages sentences: Sam oranges ate. The SOV type is the most common type found in natural languages. ...

References

• Jeffrey Heath, 1998. A Grammar of Koyra Chiini, the Songhay of Timbuktu. Mouton de Gruyter: Mouton Grammar Series. ISBN 3-11-016285-7.
• ed. Jeffrey Heath, Wilhelm J. Möhlig, 1998. Texts in Koyra Chiini Songhay of Timbuktu, Mali. Ruediger Koeppe. ISBN 3-89645-260-6.
• Jeffrey Heath, Dictionnaire Songhay-Anglais-Français: Tome 1 - Koyra Chiini, ou "songhay de Tombouctou", Tome 2 - Djenné Chiini, ou "songhay de Djenné". L'Harmattan:Paris 1998. ISBN 2-7384-6726-1.

• Ethnologue