Escarpment Dogon
Encyclopedia
Escarpment Dogon is a continuum
of Dogon dialects
of the Bandiagara Escarpment
, including the standard language
. There are three principal dialects:
The third dialect commonly listed is two subdialects without a common name:
Hochstetler confirms that these are intelligible with each other, but not with the more populous varieties of Dogon on the neighboring plains.
While Toro So was chosen as the official standard, because it has the most in common with the largest number of Dogon languages due to its central location, and is used in educational and official contexts, Jamsay Dogon is the prestige variety
and is the variety used for radio broadcasts.
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
of Dogon dialects
Dogon languages
The Dogon languages are spoken by the Dogon of Mali. There are about 600,000 speakers of a dozen languages. They are tonal languages, most like Dogul having two tones, some like Donno So having three....
of the Bandiagara Escarpment
Bandiagara Escarpment
The Bandiagara Escarpment is an escarpment in the Dogon country of Mali. The sandstone cliff rises about 500 meters above the lower sandy flats to the south. It has a length of approximately 150 kilometers. The area of the escarpment is inhabited today by the Dogon people. Before the Dogon, the...
, including the standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
. There are three principal dialects:
- Toro So , called Bomu Tegu in the plains languages and also known as , is the standard variety of Dogon, which is one of thirteen official languages of MaliMaliMali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
.
- Tommo So , called Tombo so by Bondum Dom speakers, is spoken in a region from Kasa to BandiagaraBandiagaraBandiagara is a city in the Dogon region of Mali in Africa. The name translates roughly to "large eating bowl"—referring to the communal bowl meals are served in....
. It is more linguistically conservative than Toro So.
The third dialect commonly listed is two subdialects without a common name:
- Donno So in the BandiagaraBandiagaraBandiagara is a city in the Dogon region of Mali in Africa. The name translates roughly to "large eating bowl"—referring to the communal bowl meals are served in....
area, and - Kamma So also known as Kamba So, in the Kamba area.
Hochstetler confirms that these are intelligible with each other, but not with the more populous varieties of Dogon on the neighboring plains.
While Toro So was chosen as the official standard, because it has the most in common with the largest number of Dogon languages due to its central location, and is used in educational and official contexts, Jamsay Dogon is the prestige variety
Prestige dialect
In sociolinguistics, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige or class within a society...
and is the variety used for radio broadcasts.