Bijago language explained

Bidyogo
Also Known As:Bijago
States:Guinea-Bissau
Region:Offshore Bissagos Islands
Speakers:36,000
Date:2022
Ref:e26
Script:Latin
Familycolor:Niger-Congo
Fam2:Atlantic–Congo
Fam3:Atlantic
Fam4:Senegambian
Fam5:Bak
Dia4:Kamona
Dia3:Anhaqui (Anhaki)
Dia1:Kagbaaga
Dia2:Kajoko (Orango)
Iso3:bjg
Glotto:bijo1239
Glottorefname:Bijogo
Notice:IPA

Bijago or Bidyogo is the language of the Bissagos Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau. There are some difficulties of grammar and intelligibility between dialects, with the Kamona dialect being unintelligible to the others.

Dialects are as follows:

Characteristics

The Kajoko dialect is one of the few in the world known to use a linguolabial consonant, the voiced stop to tap pronounced as /[d̼ ~ ɾ̼]/, in its basic sound system (Olson et al. 2009).

Classification

Bijago is highly divergent. Sapir (1971) classified it as an isolate within the West Atlantic family. However, Segerer showed that this is primarily due to unrecognized sound changes, and that Bijago is in fact close to the Bak languages. For example, the following cognates in Bijago and Joola Kasa (a Bak language) are completely regular, but had not previously been identified (Segerer 2010):

GlossBijagoJoola Kasa
head bu fu-kow
eye ji-cil

See also

References