Baoulé language

الموسوعة الحرة

Baoulé (native name: wawle), also known as Baule or Bawule, is an Akan language spoken in central and southern Ivory Coast, including in the regions of Lacs, Lagunes, Gôh-Djiboua, Sassandra-Marahoué, Vallée du Bandama, Woroba, and Yamoussoukro, by approximately 5.3 million people.[1] It is a Kwa language of the Akan branch, forming a dialect continuum with Anyin and closely related to Nzema and Sehwi.[2] It is the common language of the Baoulé people, the largest ethnic group in Ivory Coast.[3]

Translations of the Bible

In 1946, portions of the Bible translated into Baoulé were first published; the full New Testament followed in 1953.[4] The complete Bible was published first in 1998, by the Bible Society in Abidjan.

Phonology

Consonants

LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarLabial-velar
Plosivevoicelessptckkp
voicedbdɟggb
Fricativevoicelessfs
voicedvz
Nasalmnɲ
Laterall
Trillr
Approximantjw

Vowels

FrontCentralBack
Closeiu
Close-mideo
Open-midɛɔ
Opena

Of these vowels, five may be nasalized: /ĩ/, /ɛ̃/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /ɔ̃/.[5][6]

Tones

Baoulé has five tones: high, low, mid, rising, and falling.[7]

Orthography

Baoulé uses the following letters to indicate the following phonemes:[5]

UppercaseABCDEƐFGGBIJLKKPMNNYOƆPSTUVWYZ
Lowercaseabcdeɛfggbijlkkpmnnyoɔpstuvwyz
Phoneme/a//b//c//d//e//ɛ//f//g//gb//i//ɟ//l//k//kp//m//n//ɲ//o//ɔ//p//s//t//u//v//w//j//z/

See also

References

  1. 12Baoulé at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  2. ↑Koffi, Ettien N'da (1990). The interface between phonology and morpho(phono)logy in the standardization of Anyi orthography(PDF).
  3. ↑"Baoulé". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2020-01-03.
  4. ↑Project, Joshua. "Baule in Côte d'Ivoire". joshuaproject.net. Retrieved 2026-04-11.
  5. 12"Système alphabétique de la langue baoulé". Retrieved 2017-01-29.
  6. ↑Kouadio N'guessan, Jérémie; Kouame, Kouakou (2004). Parlons baoulé: langue et culture de la Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: L'Harmattan.
  7. ↑"PHOIBLE 2.0 -". phoible.org. Retrieved 2020-01-03.

Further reading