Dagbani (or Dagbane), also known as Dagbanli or Dagbanle, is a Gur language spoken in Ghana and Northern Togo. Its native speakers are estimated around 1,170,000.^[1] Dagbani is the most widely spoken language in northern Ghana, specifically among the tribes that fall under the authority of the King of Dagbon, known as the Yaa-Naa. Dagbon is a traditional kingdom situated in northern Ghana, and the Yaa-Naa is the paramount chief or king who governs over the various tribes and communities within the Dagbon kingdom.

Dagbani is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Mampruli, Nabit, Talni, Kamara, Kantosi, and Hanga, also spoken in Northern, North East, Upper East, and Savannah Regions. It is also similar to the other members of the same subgroup spoken in other regions, including Dagaare and Wali, spoken in Upper West Region of Ghana, along with Frafra and Kusaal, spoken in the Upper East Region of the country.^[3][4]

In Togo, Dagbani is spoken in the Savanes Region on the border with Ghana.

Dialects

Dagbani has a major dialect split between Eastern Dagbani (Nayahali), centred on the traditional capital town of Yendi (Naya), and Western Dagbani (Tomosili), centred on the administrative capital of the Northern Region, Tamale. The dialects are, however, mutually intelligible, and mainly consist of different root vowels in some lexemes, and different forms or pronunciations of some nouns, particularly those referring to local flora. The words Dagbani and Dagbanli given above for the name of the language are respectively the Eastern and Western dialect forms of the name, but the Dagbani Orthography Committee resolved that “It was decided that in the spelling system <Dagbani> is used to refer to the ... Language, and <Dagbanli> ... to the life and culture”;^{[5][original research?]} in the spoken language, each dialect uses its form of the name for both functions.

Phonology

Vowels

Dagbani has eleven phonemic vowels – six short vowels and five long vowels:

Olawsky (1999) puts the schwa (ə) in place of /ɨ/, unlike other researchers on the language^[6] who use the higher articulated /ɨ/. Allophonic variation based on tongue-root advancement is well attested for 4 of these vowels: ~ /, ~ , ~ and ~ .

Consonants

• mainly occurs phonemically among other Western dialects.
• /s/ debuccalizes as a glottal when in intervocalic position. /ɡ/ debuccalizes as a glottal stop post-vocalic position.
• Sounds /k, ɡ, s, z/ are realized as when preceding front vowels.
• /d/ can be heard as when in post-vocalic positions.^[6]

Tone

Dagbani is a tonal language in which pitch is used to distinguish words, as in gballi (high-high) 'grave' vs. gballi (high-low) 'zana mat'.^[7] The tone system of Dagbani is characterised by two level tones and downstep (a lowering effect occurring between sequences of the same phonemic tone).

Orthography

Dagbani is written in a Latin alphabet with the addition of the apostrophe, the letters ɛ, ɣ, ŋ, ɔ, and ʒ, and the digraphs ch, gb, kp, ŋm, sh and ny. The literacy rate used to be only 2–3%.^[8][9] This percentage is expected to rise as Dagbani is now a compulsory subject in primary and junior secondary school all over Dagbon. The orthography currently used^[10] (Orthography Committee /d(1998)) represents a number of allophonic distinctions. Tone is not marked.

Grammar

Dagbani is agglutinative, but with some fusion of affixes. The constituent order in Dagbani sentences is usually agent–verb–object.

Lexicon

There is insight into a historical stage of the language in the papers of Rudolf Fisch, reflecting data collected during his missionary work in the German Togoland colony in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, especially the lexical list,^[11] though there is also some grammatical information^[12] and sample texts.^[13] A more modern glossary was published in 1934 by a southern Ghanaian officer of the colonial government, E. Foster Tamakloe, in 1934,^[14] with a revised edition by British officer Harold Blair.^[15] Various editors added to the wordlist and a more complete publication was produced in 2003 by a Dagomba scholar, Ibrahim Mahama.^[16] According to the linguist Salifu Nantogma Alhassan,^[17] there is evidence to suggest that there are gender-related double standards in the Dagbani language with "more labels that trivialise females than males".^[18] Meanwhile, the data was electronically compiled by John Miller Chernoff and Roger Blench (whose version is published online),^[19] and converted into a database by Tony Naden, on the basis of which a full-featured dictionary is ongoing and can be viewed online.^[20]

Noun Class Systemedit

Pronounsedit

Each set of personal pronouns in Dagbani is distinguished regarding person, number and animacy. Besides the distinction between singular and plural, there is an additional distinction between +/- animate in the 3rd person. Moreover, Dagbani distinguishes between emphatic and non-emphatic pronouns and there are no gender distinctions. While there is no morphological differentiation between grammatical cases, pronouns can occur in different forms according to whether they appear pre- or postverbally.^[22]

Non-emphatic Pronounsedit

Preverbaledit

Preverbal pronouns serve as subjects of a verb and are all monosyllabic.^[22]

Postverbaledit

Postverbal pronouns usually denote objects.^[22]

Given the fact that preverbal and postverbal pronouns do not denote two complementary sets, one could refer to them as unmarked or specifically marked for postverbal occurrence.^[22]