Western Plains Dogon Explained

Western Plains Dogon
Nativename:Kan Dogon
Region:Mali, Burkina Faso
Speakers:260,000
Date:1998
Ref:e18
Familycolor:Niger-Congo
Fam2:Dogon
Fam3:Plains
Dia1:Tomo Kan
Dia2:Tengu Kan
Dia3:Togo Kan
Lc2:dtk
Ld2:Tene Kan
Lc1:dtm
Ld1:Tomo Kan
Glotto:west2508
Glottorefname:Western Plains Dogon

The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali are mutually intelligible. They are sometimes called the Kan Dogon because they use the word kan (also spelled ) for varieties of speech. The dialects are:

The latter two are traditionally subsumed under the name Tene kã (Tene Kan, Tene Tingi), but Hochstetler separates them because the three varieties are about equidistant.

There are a quarter million speakers of these dialects, about evenly split between Tomo Kan and Tene Kan, making this the most populous of the Dogon languages. There are a few Tomo-speaking villages just across the border in Burkina Faso.

Phonology

Consonants

!Labial!Alveolar!Palatal!Velar!Glottal
Stop/
Affricate
voicelesspronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
voiced/nasalpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Fricativevoiceless(pronounced as /ink/)pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
voiced(pronounced as /ink/)
Nasalpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Tappronounced as /ink/
Approximantcentralpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
nasalpronounced as /ink/(pronounced as /ink/)
!Labial!Alveolar!Palatal!Velar!Glottal
Stop/
Affricate
voicelesspronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/(pronounced as /ink/)pronounced as /ink/(pronounced as /ink/)
voicedpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Fricative(pronounced as /ink/)pronounced as /ink/(pronounced as /ink/)(pronounced as /ink/)
Nasalpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
Tapcentralpronounced as /ink/
nasalpronounced as /ink/
Approximantcentralpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/
nasalpronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/

Vowels

OralNasal
FrontBackFrontBack
Closepronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Close-midpronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Open-midpronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/
Openpronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/

References

Notes and References

  1. Book: Dyachkov, Vadim. A Grammar of Tomo Kan Dogon. 2019.