The Eastern Mande languages (called Eastern Eastern Mande by Kastenholz, and Niger–Volta by Schreiber[1] and also known as the Bisa–Busa languages) are a branch of the Mande languages spoken in seven areas: northwest Burkina Faso, the border region of northern Benin and Nigeria, and one language, Bissa, also spoken in Ghana, Togo, and Ivory Coast and the Samo languages also spoken in Mali.
Member languages
- Bissa, spoken in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, and Ivory Coast
- Boko of Benin and Nigeria
- Busa of Nigeria and Benin
- Bokobaru of Nigeria
- Samo languages (Sane, San, Sa) of Burkina Faso and Mali
- Shanga, spoken in Nigeria
- Tyenga (Kyenga), spoken in Benin and Nigeria.
Classification
The following internal classification is from Dwyer (1989, 1996), as summarized in Williamson & Blench 2000.[2]
Vydrin (2009) places San (Samo) with Bisa.[3]
See also
- Proto-Niger-Volta reconstructions (Wiktionary)
References
- ^ Schreiber, Henning. 2008. Eine historische Phonologie der Niger-Volta-Sprachen: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Sprachgeschichte der östlichen Ost-Mandesprachen (Mande Languages and Linguistics 7). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- ^ Heine, Bernd; Nurse, Derek, eds. (2000). African languages : an introduction. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521661781. OCLC 42810789.
- ^ Valentin, Vydrin. On the problem of the Proto-Mande homeland (PDF). OCLC 798912747.