Bambara language 1

Bambara language
Bambara
Bamanankan

Spoken in Mali
Burkina Faso
Côte d'Ivoire
Guinea
Senegal
The Gambia
Region central southern Mali and abroad

Native [1]
4,000,000, second language speakers 8-10 millions (estimation, 2010; the figures by the Ethnologue of
speakers 2,700,000 are out of date)

Language Niger–Congo ?
family • Mande
• Western Mande
• ...
• Manding
• East Manding
• Bamana
• Bambara

Language codes

ISO 639-1 bm

ISO 639-2 bam

ISO 639-3 bam

Bambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan (߲ߊߞ߲ߊߣߊߡߓ), its

designation in the language itself (literally 'Bamana(n) sound'), is a
language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people (including
second language users). The Bambara language is the mother tongue of
the Bambara ethnic group, numbering about 4,000,000 people, but
serves also as a lingua franca in Mali (it is estimated that about 80% of
the population speaks it as a first or second language). It is an SOV
language and has two tones. The historic extent of the Bambara people.
Bambara language 2

Classification
Bambara belongs to a group of closely-related languages called Manding, within the larger Mandé group. It is
closely related to Dioula (or Jula), a language spoken or understood by fewer people in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire
and The Gambia.

Alphabet and literature

It uses seven vowels a, e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ and u (the letters approximate their IPA equivalents). Writing was introduced
during the French occupation and literacy is limited, especially in rural areas. Although written literature is only
slowly evolving (due to the predominance of French as the "language of the educated"), there exists a wealth of oral
literature, which is often tales of kings and heroes. This oral literature is mainly tradited by the "Griots" (Jɛliw in
Bambara) who are a mixture of storytellers, praise singers and human history books who have studied the trade of
singing and reciting for many years. Many of their songs are very old and are said to date back to the old kingdom of
Mali.

Geographical distribution
Bambara is a national language of Mali, and also the most widely understood language in Mali.

Dialects
The main dialect is standard Bamara, which has significant influence from Western Maninkakan.[1] Bambara has
many local dialects. Some dialect variants: Somono, Segou, San, Beledugu, Ganadugu, Wasulu and Sikasso.[1]
Jula is a dialect in the Manding linguistic continuum and is closely related to Bambara. It is a widely-used trade
language in West Africa.

Writing
Since the 1970s Bambara has mostly been written in the Latin script, using some additional phonetic characters. The
vowels are a, e, ɛ (formerly è), i, o, ɔ (formerly ò), u; accents can be used to indicate tonality. The former digraph ny
is now written ɲ or ñ (Senegal). The ambiguous digraph "ng" represented both the [ŋɡ] sound of English "finger"
and the [ŋ] of "singer". The 1966 Bamako spelling conventions render the latter sound as "ŋ".
The N'Ko (ߒ'ߏߞ) alphabet is a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande
languages of West Africa; N’Ko means 'I say' in all Mande languages. Kante created N’Ko in response to what he felt
were beliefs that Africans were a "cultureless people" since prior to this time there had been no indigenous African
writing system for his language. N'ko came first into use in Kankan, Guinea as a Maninka alphabet and disseminated
from there into other Mande-speaking parts of West Africa. N'ko and the Arabic script are still in use for Bambara,
although the Latin script is much more common.
Bambara language 3

Grammar
Bambara belongs to a group of closely-related languages called Manding (related to Mandinka, Mande language
group). It is an SOV language and has two (mid/standard and high) tones; e.g. sa 'death' vs. sá 'snake.' The typical
argument structure of the language consists of a subject, followed by an aspectival auxiliary, followed by the direct
object, and finally a transitive verb. Naturally, if the verb is intransitive, the direct object is not found.
Bambara does not inflect for gender. Gender for a noun can be specified by adding a suffix, -ce or -ke for male and
-muso for female. The plural is formed by attaching -w to words.
Bambara uses postpositions in much the same manner as languages like English and French use prepositions. These
postpositions are found after the verb and are used to express direction, location, and in some cases, possession.

Loan words
In urban areas, many Bambara conjunctions have been replaced in everyday use by French borrowings that often
mark code-switches. The Bamako dialect makes use of sentences like: N taara Kita mais il n'y avait personne là-bas.
: I went to Kita [Bambara] but there was no one there [French]. The sentence in Bambara alone would be N taara
Kita nka mɔgɔsi tuntɛ yen. The French proposition "est-ce-que" is also used in Bambara; however, it is pronounced
more slowly and as three syllables, [ɛsəkə].
Bambara uses many French loan words. For example, some people might say: I ka kulosi ye jauni ye: "Your skirt is
yellow" (using a derivation of the French word for yellow, jaune.)
However, one could also say: I ka kulosi ye neremuguman ye, also meaning "your skirt is yellow." The original
Bambara word for yellow comes from "neremugu," mugu being flour made from Néré, a seed from a long seed pod.
Neremugu is often used in sauces in Southern Mali.
Most French loan words are suffixed with the sound 'i'; this is particularly common when using French words which
have a meaning not traditionally found in Mali. For example, the Bambara word for snow is niegei, based on the
French word for snow neige. As there has never been snow in Mali, there has not been a traditional meaning for the
word and thus no unique word in Bambara to describe it.

Examples
N bɛ bamanankan mɛn dɔɔni-dɔɔni
I understand/hear a little bit of Bambara (lit: I aux positive Bambara hear small-small)
I tɛna dumuni ke wa?
Aren't you going to eat? (lit: you aux negative future eating do question particle)
Dou Mara be ameriki ali bi wa?
Is Dou Mara still living in the USA? (lit: Dou Mara still America in live question particle)
Macire nana MALI la wa ? (did Macire come to Mali?)

Music
Malian artists such as Oumou Sangaré, Rokia Traoré, Ali Farka Touré, Salif Keita, Habib Koité, and the blind couple
Amadou & Mariam often sing in Bambara. Aïda of the band Métisse often sings in Dioula, as does Mory Kante,
born in Guinea to a Malian mother; his most famous song to date is "Yeke Yeke" (Alpha Blondy). Lyrics in
Bambara occur on Stevie Wonder's soundtrack Journey through the Secret Life of Plants. Tiken Jah Fakoly (reggae)
often sings in Dioula and French.
Bambara language 4

References
[1] Bambara language (http:/ / www. ethnologue. org/ show_language. asp?code=bam) at Ethnologue

Bibliography
• Bird, Charles, Hutchison, John & Kanté, Mamadou (1976) An Ka Bamanankan Kalan: Beginning Bambara.
Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Linguistics Club.
• Bird, Charles & Kanté, Mamadou (1977) Bambara-English, English-Bambara student lexicon. Bloomington:
Indiana Univ. Linguistics Club.
• Kastenholz, Raimund (1998) Grundkurs Bambara (Manding) mit Texten (second revised edition)
(Afrikawissenschaftliche Lehrbücher Vol. 1). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
• Konaré, Demba (1998) Je parle bien bamanan. Bamako: Jamana.
• Morales, José (2010) J'apprends le bambara. 61 conversations, (book + CD-Rom). Paris: Editions Karthala.
ISBN 281110433X
• Touré, Mohamed & Leucht, Melanie (1996) Bambara Lesebuch: Originaltexte mit deutscher und französischer
Übersetzung = Chrestomathie Bambara: textes originaux Bambara avec traductions allemandes et françaises
(with illustrations by Melanie Leucht) (Afrikawissenschaftliche Lehrbücher Vol. 11) . Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.

External links
• Map of Bamanakan language (or Bambara) from the LL-Map Project (http://llmap.org/languages/bam.html)
• Information about Bamanakan language from the MultiTree Project (http://multitree.org/codes/bam)

Descriptions
• Bambara language (http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=bam) at Ethnologue
• Mali – History – Language (http://mali.pwnet.org/history/history_language.htm)

Dictionaries
• Bambara-French-English lexicon (http://www.bambara.org/en) online and downloadable lexicons for language
learners
• Bambara entries (>1000) in the French Wiktionary (http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:bambara)
• Bambara tree names (scientific name -> common name) (http://www.bisharat.net/Demos/jiriwso.htm)

Learning materials
• Online Bambara Course from the University of Indiana- Beginner Level (http://languagelab.bh.indiana.edu/
Bambara-Intro.html)
• Online Bambara Course from the University of Indiana- Intermediate Level (http://languagelab.bh.indiana.edu/
Bambara-Intermediate.html)
• Bambara phrasebook at Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Bambara_phrasebook)
• AN INTRODUCTION TO BAMBARA (http://www.peacecorp.gov/wws/multimedia/language/transcripts/
ML_Bambara_Language_Lessons.pdf)PDF (168 KB) on peacecorps.gov
Bambara language 5

Other
• The Rosetta Project (http://www.rosettaproject.org/archive/bam/view?searchterm=bambara=Bambara)
• Bambara at French Wikibooks (http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bambara) contains more material
• Mandenkan Journal (http://www.vjf.cnrs.fr/clt/php/va/Page_revue.php?ValCodeRev=MDK)
• PanAfriL10n page on Manding (http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Manding)
(includes information on Bambara)
• Maneno in Bambara (http://www.maneno.org/bam/) (a blogging platform with a full Bambara interface)
• Bambara on globalrecordings.net (http://globalrecordings.net/language/10)
Article Sources and Contributors 6

Article Sources and Contributors

Bambara language  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=445508495  Contributors: A. B., A12n, Abdel Noor, Aeusoes1, Andre Engels, Andres, Angr, Attilios, Avicennasis,
Badagnani, Belovedfreak, Bobo192, Burschik, CarlKenner, Cassowary, Chris the speller, Circeus, Conversion script, Coolv, Crissov, Ctreddy, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, DopefishJustin, Dp462090,
Dvyost, Everlong, Evertype, FayssalF, Garzo, Gaudio, Grenouille-verte, Guaka, Hannes Hirzel, Hans M., Hhbruun, Iketsi, J.delanoy, J04n, JCarriker, Jalwikip, Jon Harald Søby, Kathiaek,
Khoikhoi, Kikos, Kralizec!, Kwamikagami, Lissander, Lmp06, Mark Dingemanse, Martin Kozák, Mboverload, MeltBanana, Menchi, Merovingian, Mfon2, Mmortal03, Mo-Al, Moncrief,
Mustafaa, Mxn, Netaa, Netaa2, Norm, Norm mit, Olivier, Open2universe, Perkeleperkele, Pilif12p, Primecoordinator, Ptcamn, Rich Farmbrough, Saforrest, Sosannin, Steinbach, Strabismus, T L
Miles, Thegraciousfew, Tim Ivorson, Tobias Conradi, Tom-, Toussaint, Tox, Tropylium, Tygrrr, Valentin Vydrin, Varlaam, Wdshu, Woohookitty, 109 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

File:Flag of Mali.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_Mali.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:SKopp
File:Flag of Burkina Faso.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_Burkina_Faso.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:Gabbe, User:SKopp
File:Flag of Cote d'Ivoire.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_Cote_d'Ivoire.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:Jon Harald Søby
File:Flag of Guinea.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_Guinea.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:SKopp
File:Flag of Senegal.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_Senegal.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Original upload by Nightstallion
File:Flag of The Gambia.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_The_Gambia.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Atamari, Avala, Denniss, Fry1989,
Klemen Kocjancic, Mattes, Neq00, Nightstallion, OAlexander, Porao, ThomasPusch, Vzb83, WikipediaMaster, Zscout370, 3 anonymous edits
Image:Bambara.gif  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Bambara.gif  License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0  Contributors: User:Famille.lecamus

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