Dagbani Basic and Cultural Vocabulary

Introduction

Dagbani (Dagbanli, Dagbamba, Dagomba, Dagbane) belongs to the Western-Oti-Volta branch of the Gur languages, which is a part of the larger Niger-Congo language family (Olawsky 1996: 3). It is spoken in the Eastern part of the Northern Region of Ghana by approximately 300,000 people (746,924 according to the 2000 Ghana Population Census) and in north-western Togo by more or less 150.000 people. Tamale and Yendi are the main towns in Ghana, where the largest communities are found.

There are no special names far dialects. But the main dialects, centred on Tamale in the West, and Yendi in the East, are generally accepted. The differences affect mainly details of pronunciation and vocabulary, the structure of language remains uniform throughout the area. Number of speakers are probably about equal for the two.
Historically the dialect of Yendi, the capital, was the standard, but nowadays the dialect of Tamale as the administrative and publishing centre is the standard...