| Escarpment Dogon | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Mali |
| Region | Bandiagara Escarpment |
Native speakers | (160,000 cited 1998)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
Standard forms |
|
| Dialects |
|
| Official status | |
Official language in | Mali |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:dts – Tɔrɔ sɔɔdds – Donno sɔdto – Tɔmmɔ sɔ |
| Glottolog | esca1235 |
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,[2] 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.
- ^ Tɔrɔ sɔɔ at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Donno sɔ at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Tɔmmɔ sɔ at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Apparently 'Dogon language', using the exonym Dɔgɔ 'Dogon'