Native to Guinea | Ethnicity Baga | |
Native speakers (undated figure of 13,000, possibly the ethnic population) Language family Niger–Congo
Atlantic–Congo
Mel
Temne
Baga languages
Baga ISO 639-3 Variously:
bgo – Koga
bsp – Sistemu
bmd – Mandari
bqf – Kaloum (spurious)
bsv – Sobané (spurious) Glottolog temn1245 (adds Temne & Landoma) | ||
Baga, or Barka, is a dialect cluster spoken by the Baga people of coastal Guinea. The name derives from the phrase bae raka 'people of the seaside'. Most Baga are bilingual in the Mande language Susu, the official regional language. Two ethnically Baga communities, Sobané and Kaloum, are known to have abandoned their (unattested) language altogether in favour of Susu.
Contents
The varieties as distinct enough to sometimes be considered different languages. They are:
Baga Koga (Koba) Baga Manduri (Maduri, Mandari) Baga Sitemu (Sitemú, Stem Baga, Rio Pongo Baga)The extinct Baga Kaloum and Baga Sobané peoples spoken Koga and Sitemu, respectively.
Neighboring Baga Pokur is not closely related.
Noun Class Systems
Baga has prefixes for eight noun classes:
Vocabulary
All these are from Baga Maduri:
References
Baga language Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA