Baoulé language
| Baoulé | |
|---|---|
| Wawle | |
| Region | Ivory Coast |
| Ethnicity | Baoulé people |
Native speakers | 5.3 million (2021)[1] |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bci |
| Glottolog | baou1238 |
Baoulé (native name: Wawle), also known as Baule or Bawule,[1] 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.[1]
Written works
[edit]In 1946, portions of the Bible translated into Baoulé were first published; the full New Testament followed in 1953.[3] The complete Bible was published first in 1998, by the Bible Society in Abidjan.[citation needed]
In late 2024, Aristide Kouamé, an Ivorian Wikimedian who got the idea while attending Wikimania 2023, assembled a team to create a Baoulé Wikipedia in Wikimedia Incubator.[4] The first Baoulé-language articles appeared in early 2025, and the incubated wiki has since grown to six people.[4] It would be the first wiki in any of the indigenous languages of Ivory Coast.[4]
Phonology
[edit]Consonants
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial- velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | kp |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | g | gb | |
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | |||
| voiced | v | z | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
Of these vowels, five may be nasalized: /ĩ/, /ɛ̃/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /ɔ̃/.[5][6]
Tones
[edit]Baoulé has five tones: high, low, mid, rising, and falling.[7]
Orthography
[edit]Baoulé uses the following letters to indicate the following phonemes:[5]
| Uppercase | A | B | C | D | E | Ɛ | F | G | GB | I | J | L | K | KP | M | N | NY | O | Ɔ | P | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowercase | a | b | c | d | e | ɛ | f | g | gb | i | j | l | k | kp | m | n | ny | o | ɔ | p | s | t | u | v | w | y | z |
| 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
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 Baoulé at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
- ↑ Koffi, Ettien N'da (1990). The interface between phonology and morpho(phono)logy in the standardization of Anyi orthography (PDF).
- ↑ Project, Joshua. "Baule in Côte d'Ivoire". joshuaproject.net. Retrieved 2026-04-11.
- 1 2 3 KPremnath-WMF (2026-10-07). "Six people are building the first Wikipedia in Baoulé — Côte d'Ivoire's most widely spoken indigenous language". Diff. Archived from the original on 7 October 2026. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
- 1 2 "Système alphabétique de la langue baoulé". Retrieved 2017-01-29.
- ↑ Kouadio N'guessan, Jérémie; Kouame, Kouakou (2004). Parlons baoulé: langue et culture de la Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: L'Harmattan.
- ↑ "PHOIBLE 2.0 -". phoible.org. Retrieved 2020-01-03.
Further reading
[edit]- Timyan, Judith E., "A Discourse-Based Grammar of Baule: The Kode Dialect" (1977). CUNY Academic Works.
- Carteron, Michel. 1972. Étude de la langue baoule. Baconda, Cote d'Ivoire: s.n.
External links
[edit]
- Baoulé entry at the World Atlas of Language Structures
- PanAfriL10n page on Anyi & Baule
- Baoulé Phonology (French)
- Baule kasahorow
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