Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Escarpment Dogon

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Native to
  
Mali

Native speakers
  
160,000 (1998)

Region
  
Bandiagara Escarpment

Standard forms
  
Tɔrɔ sɔɔ

Language family
  
Niger–Congo Dogon Escarpment Dogon

Dialects
  
Tɔrɔ sɔɔ Tɔmmɔ sɔɔ Donno sɔ

Escarpment Dogon is a continuum of Dogon dialects of the Bandiagara Escarpment, including the standard language. There are three principal dialects:

  • Toro So Tɔrɔ sɔɔ, called Bomu Tegu in the plains languages and also known as Dɔgɔsɔ, is the standard variety of Dogon, which is one of thirteen official languages of Mali.
  • Tommo So Tɔmmɔ sɔ, called Tombo so by Bondum Dom speakers, is spoken in a region from Kasa to Bandiagara. It is more linguistically conservative than Toro So.

    • The third dialect commonly listed is two subdialects without a common name:

  • Donno So Donno sɔ in the Bandiagara area, and
  • Kamma So Kamma sɔ 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 and is the variety used for radio broadcasts.

    References

    Escarpment Dogon Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA