Mande (or Manding) is the name of a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka, Soninke, and Bambara. The family has over one million speakers, chiefly in Gambia, Senegal and Guinea Bissau. This linguistic group is part of the Niger-Congo family. Though, there is still a debate as to whether it actually belongs in the Nilo-Saharan language family. World map showing location of Africa A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. ... The Mandinka language is a Mandé language spoken by some 1. ... Bambara, also known as Bamanankan, is a language spoken in Mali by as many six million people. ... The Republic of Guinea-Bissau (República da Guiné-Bissau) is a country in western Africa, and one the smallest countries in continental Africa. ... Map showing the distribution of Niger-Congo languages The Niger-Congo languages are probably the largest group of the world in terms of different languages. ... Map showing the distribution of the Nilo-Saharan languages. ...
The group was first recognized in 1854 by Koelle in his Polyglotta Africana. He mentioned 13 languages under the heading North-Western High-Sudan Family, or Mandéga Family of Languages. In 1901 Maurice Delafosse made a distinction of two groups in his Essai de manuel pratique de la langue mandé ou mandingue. He speaks of a northern group mandé-tan and a southern group mandé-fu. This distinction was basically done only because the languages in the north use the expression tan for ten whereas the southern group use fu. In 1924 L. Tauxier notes that this distinction is not well founded and there is at least a third subgroup he called mandé-bu. It is not until 1950 when A. Prost supports this view and gives further details. In 1958 Welmers publishes an article The Mande Languages where he divides the languages into three subgroups - North-West, South and East. His conclusion was based on lexicostatistic research. Greenberg follows this distinction 1963 in The Languages of Africa. Long (1971) and G. Galtier (1980) follow the distinction into three groups but with notable differences. 1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Polyglotta Africana is a study written by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle in 1854 in which he compared about 120 African languages (according to todays classification). ... 1924 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1950 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Events January-February January 11 - The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened. ... 1971 is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...
The Southern Group (Côte d'Ivoire) Côte dIvoire (often called Ivory Coast in English; see below about the name) is a country in West Africa. ...
Members of this language family were responsible for the three major empires of West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. Côte dIvoire (often called Ivory Coast in English; see below about the name) is a country in West Africa. ... The Songhai are an ethnic group living in western Africa. ...
Delafosse, Maurice (1901) Essai de manuel pratique de la langue mandé ou mandingue. Paris : Leroux. 304 p.
Delafosse, Maurice (1904) Vocabulaires comparatifs de plus de soixante langues ou dialectes parlés à la Côte d'Ivoire et dans les régions limitrophes, avec des notes linguistiques et ethnologiques. Paris : Leroux. 285 p.
Nazam HALAOUI, Kalilou TERA, Monique TRABI (1983) Atlas des langues mandé-sud de Côte d'Ivoire. Abidjan : ACCT-ILA.
However, Nicolaï eventually concluded that this approach was not adequate, and in 1990 proposed a distinctly novel hypothesis: that Songhay is a Berber-based creole language, restructured under Mande influence.
In support of this he proposed 412 possible similarities, ranging all the way from basic vocabulary (tasa "liver") to obvious borrowings (anzad "violin", alkaadi "qadi".) Others, such as Gerrit Dimmendaal, were not convinced, and Nicolaï (2003) appears to consider the question of Songhay's origins still open, while arguing cogently against Ehret and Bender's proposed etymologies.
Manding má, máŋ), the subjunctive ma (Manding máa), the copula ti (Bisa ti, Manding de/le), the verbal connective ka (Manding kà), the suffixes -ri (resultative - cf.
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