Nafaanra language

Nafaanra (sometimes written Nafaara, pronounced [Nafaãra]) is a Senufo language spoken in northwest Ghana, along the border with Cote d'Ivoire, east of Bondouko. It is spoken by approximately 61 000 people (GILLBT 2003). Its speakers call themselves Nafana; others call them Banda or Mfantera. Like other Senufo languages, Nafaanra is a tonal language. It is somewhat of an outlier in the Senufo language group, with the geographically closest relatives, the Southern Senufo Tagwana-Djimini languages, approximately 200 kilometres to the west, on the other side of Comoué National Park.

Geography and demography

Nafaanra is bordered by Kulango languages to the west, while Deg (a Gur language) and Gonja (Kwa) are found to the north and east. The closest eastern neighbour, however, is the Mande language Ligbi (whose speakers are also called Banda), interestingly enough also an outlier to its own family. Southeast and south of Nafaanra and Ligbi, the Akan language Abron (or Bron, Brong) is spoken.

The Nafana people live in the north-west corner of the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana, concentrated mainly in Sampa (capital of the Jaman North district) and Banda. According to Jordan (1980:A.5), there are two dialectal variants of Nafaanra: Pantera of Banda, and Fantera of Sampa. Bendor-Samuel (1971) gives a 79% cognate relationship on the Swadesh list between the two of them. The Banda dialect is considered central. The terms 'Fantera' and 'Pantera' come from other peoples and are considered pejorative by the Nafana.

The Nafana people relate that they come from Cote d'Ivoire, from a village called Kakala. According to Jordan (1978), their oral history says that some of their people are still there, and if they go back they won't be allowed to leave again. They arrived in the Banda area after the Ligbi people, who according to Stahl (2004) came from Bigu (Begho, Bighu) to the area in the early 17^th century.

Many Nafana are bilingual to some extent in Twi, the regional lingua franca. According to SIL, 50% of the people are able to ‘satisfy routine social demands and limited requirements in other domains’, while 20% are able to speak Twi ‘with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations on practical, social, and occupational topics’. The remaining 30% are either able to maintain only very simple face-to-face conversations on familiar topics (15%) or unable to speak Twi at all (15%). 15–25% of the Nafana people are literate in Twi, whereas only 1–5% are literate in Nafaanra. [1] [2]

According to Roger Blench, Nafaanra is the second language of the approximately 70 Dompo people living in the close vicinity of Banda. Dompo, thought to be extinct until a field work trip of Blench in 1998 proved the contrary, is their first language.

Classification

Delafosse (1904) was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra, calling it 'a much dispersed Senufo tribe' (p. 195). Westermann in his classification of West-African languages (1970 [1952]:56) also grouped Nafaanra with Senufo, apparently based on the word list found in Rapp (1933). This classification is confirmed by Bendor-Samuel (1971), who bases his Senufo internal classification on the comparative word lists in Swadesh et. al. (1966).

It is less clear which particular Senufo branch Nafaanra is related to most closely. Bendor-Samuel (1971) gives a 60% cognate relationship on the Swadesh list with 'Tenere' (a western Senari dialect), 59% with 'Central Senari' (the Senari dialect spoken around Korhogo), and 43% with the non-Senufo languages Mo (or Deg), Kabre (or Kabiye), and Dogon. The relativily low scores of about 60% point to a rather distant relationship. Likewise, Mensah and Tchagbale (1983) establish an intercomprensibility factor of 38% with 'Tyebaara' (Senari), concluding that Nafaanra is only distantly related to this dialect (p. 19). Nafaanra has been tentatively linked to Palaka (Kpalaga) by Mannessy (1981), whereas Mills (1984) suggests a relation with the southern Tagwana-Djimini branch. Conclusive comparative linguistic research is yet to take place.

Sounds

Vowels

Seven oral and five nasalized vowels are listed by Jordan (1980). Nasalization of vowels is marked by adding the letter n after the vowel, as in many West African orthographies. Vowels can be short or long. The vowel system closely resembles that of other Senufo languages. It is like the two Northern Senufo languages Supyire and Mamara in having only five nasal against seven oral vowels.

Consonants

In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of ‘j’ for IPA [ɟ] and the use of ‘y’ for IPA [j], common in African orthographies.

The consonant system of Nafaanra is fairly similar to that of other Senufo languages. Nafaanra has only one attested palatal fricative, /sh/, occupying an intermediate position between the Northern Senufo languages (Mamara, Supyire) that have both /sh/ and its voiced counterpart /zh/, and the Central and Southern Senufo languages (e.g. Karaboro, Senari, Djimini) that have no palatal fricatives at all. Nafaanra /h/ most probably corresponds to the glottal consonant most other Senufo languages have, either in the form of a glottal stop /ʔ/ (Supyire, Senari, Karaboro) or a glottal fricative /h/ (Mamara).

Tone

Like the other Senufo languages, Nafaanra has three contrastive tones: High, Mid and Low (a major drawback of the Nafaanra orthography included in Hartell (1993) is the fact that tone is not marked.) The examples given by Jordan (1980:D.3.4) are:

• kúfɔ̀ ‘yam’ (High-Low)
• dama ‘two pesewas (coin)’ (Mid)
• màŋà ‘rope’ (Low)

Jordan briefly mentions that the Mid tone sometimes has a rising feature, that the High tone sometimes is subject to downstep (a tonal process resulting in a High tone being realised lower than a preceding High tone), and that an upstep is also found. The ‘rising feature’ of Mid may be related to the fact that two different Mid tones are found in some other Senufo languages (e.g. Sucite and Supyire). The High tone downstep (signified by a raised exclamation mark) is exemplified as follows by Jordan:

• we ^! sɛ   (he FUT go)   ‘he will go’.

It is likely that the tonal lowering seen in this particular example is related to the low tone nasal prefix found in future tense constructions in some other Senufo languages. In fact, Supyire (Carlson 1994:334) shows a similar phenomenon in future tense constructions with a direct object (in other future tense constructions, a low tone nasal is found). In general however, downstep is more widespread than in Supyire, and it is no doubt significant that a similar phenomenon is found in Palaka, Tagwana, and Djimini (Mills 1984:xvi).

It is not clear what the correlate of the upstep phenomenon is in other Senufo languages. It is exemplified by an imperative sentence:

• ki tɔ   (it close)   ‘close it!’

Grammar

The Nafaanra syllable comprises a vowel and a maximum of three consonants. A nasal consonant may occur as a syllable on its own, in which case it is called a syllabic nasal. The basic syllable structure can be rendered as (C₁)(C₂)V(C₃), with a preference for CV and CVV. Position C₁ may contain any consonant, although word-initial /r/ does not occur. Position C₂ may contain only trills (/r/) or approximants (/w, l, j/). Position C₃ may contain only nasals (/m n ɲ ŋ/), in which case the syllable as a whole is nasalized.

Senufo languages have a typical Niger-Congo noun class (or gender) system. Suffixes on nouns mark membership of one of the five noun genders. Pronouns, adjectives and copulas reflect the noun gender of the nominal they refer to. Although none of the sources on Nafaanra provides any details, it can be inferred from a brief word list in Jordan (1980) that the Nafaanra noun class system resembles that of other Senufo languages.

The basic word order in Nafaanra is Subject Object Verb, as can be seen in the following sentence:

• bibilɛ ná pé nya   (boys PAST them see)   The boys saw them

Personal pronouns

Jordan (1980) lists the following list of pronouns, commenting that ‘Although the pronoun system appears quite simple, it becomes complicated because all the tenses are shown by a combination of pronoun plus particle.’

Tense and aspect

Tense and aspect in Nafaanra are generally encoded in two places: in preverbal particles and on the verb form. Nafaanra has past, recent past, and future tenses and continuative aspect. In a simple sentence, the order of the various constituents can be rendered as follows: SUBJECT • (NEGATION) • (TENSE) • (ASPECT) • VERB . When the negative suffix -n is present, no fusing of preverbal particles takes place. Nafaanra additionally expresses some tense/aspect matters by use of certain time adverbs and auxiliary verbs.

Past tense is marked by the preverbal particle ná (high tone, as opposed to the low tone continuative particle). Future tense is marked by the particle wè. Simple sentences without a preverbal tense particle are interpreted as recent past (sometimes called immediate). If aspect marking is absent, simple sentences are generally interpreted as completive. (Example sentences adapted from Jordan 1978:85–87.)

• kòfí ná sɛ́   (Kofi PAST go-completive)   Kofi went — PAST
• kòfí wè sɛ́   (Kofi FUTURE go-completive)   Kofi will go — FUTURE
• kòfí sɛ́   (Kofi go-completive)   Kofi just went — RECENT PAST (no marking)

Continuative aspect (sometimes called progressive) denotes an action that is ongoing or repetitive. Continuative aspect is usually marked both by a preverbal particle nà (low tone) and by a change of the verb form. The verb sɛ́ ‘go’ used in the sentences below has the continuative form síé. In sentences where both past tense particle ná and continuative particle nà are present, they combine to give the fused particle náà. In sentences in the recent past tense, the preverbal continuative particle is omitted and continuative aspect is shown only on the verb.

• kòfí náà síé   (Kofi PAST+CONT go-CONT)   Kofi was going — CONT + PAST
• kòfí wè nà síé   (Kofi FUT CONT go-CONT)   Kofi will be going — CONT + FUTURE
• kòfí síé   (Kofi go-CONT)   Kofi is going — CONT + RECENT PAST

Two classes of verbs can be differentiated on the basis of their behaviour in aspectually marked sentences. One class of verbs has two aspectually distinct forms, as seen in the above example sentences. Another class of verbs does not distinguish aspect — one and the same form shows up in both completive and continuative aspect. In sentences in the recent past tense, this gives rise to ambiguity since the preverbal continuative particle is omitted there. Thus, the sentence kòfí blú can be interpreted in the following two ways:

• kòfí blú   (Kofi swim-CONT)   Kofi is swimming — CONT + RECENT PAST
• kòfí blú   (Kofi swim-completive)   Kofi just swam — RECENT PAST (no marking)

Considerable fusion takes place between pronominal subjects and the preverbal particles. For example, ná ‘PAST’ fuses with pé ‘they’ to produce prá sɛ́ (they-PAST go-completive) ‘they went’ and wè ‘FUTURE’ fuses with pé in píè sɛ́ (they-FUTURE go-completive) ‘they will go’.

Questions

Questions can be formed in several ways in Nafaanra. Basic yes/no questions are constructed by adding a sentence-final question marker rá. Constituent questions (sometimes called Wh-questions or question word questions) are doubly marked. They contain a sentence-initial question word and are marked with a sentence-final question marker hin. (Examples adapted from Jordan 1980:NAF4.)

• u pan rá   (he come Q)   Has he come? — basic yes/no-question
• ŋgi wra nya hin   (what he+PAST see Q)   What did he see? — constituent question

Numbers

The cardinal numbers given in Jordan (1980:D.1.4) without tonal marking are presented below. Where possible, the tone pattern is added based on the list in Rapp (1933:66–67). Some Supyire correlates (Carlson 1994:169) are given for comparison. Note that numbers six to nine are derived by adding the numbers one to four to kɔɔ ‘five’ by means of the conjunction na.

The numbers 11–19 are formed by adding 1–9 to 10 by means of the conjunction mbɔ, e.g. kɛmbɔnunu ‘eleven’, kɛmbɔkunɔ ‘fifteen’. In the tens and higher, the Nafaanra and Supyire systems diverge. Multiplication of fulo ‘twenty’ and addition of kɛ ‘ten’ (by means of the conjunction ná) is used to form the 30–90 tens. Perhaps surprisingly, there are considerable differences between Rapp (1933) and Jordan (1980) here. In Rapp’s 60, 70 and 80, féle seems to be used to mark ten, which conjoined with 6, 7 and 8 forms 60, 70 and 80.

Rapp (1933) compares the Nafaanra numerals for three (táárɛ) and hundred (lafaa) with eta and ke-lafa from Mpre, a hitherto unclassified language from Ghana. It should be noted however that Mpre eta is Kwa-like (cf. Brong esã, Ga etɛ), whereas the Nafaanra form táárɛ is transparently related to the forms found in the other (non-Kwa) Senufo languages (e.g. Supyire tàànrè). Nafaanra lafaa ‘hundred’ is a typical Kwa numeral and is most probably borrowed from one of the surrounding Kwa languages (cf. Dangme làfá, Gonja kì-làfá, Ewe alafá). Rapp's implication of affinity between Mpre and Nafaanra seems therefore unwarranted at this level.

Morphophonological alternations occur here and there, most notably the reduction of kúnɔ ‘five’ to kɔ́ɔ̀ (preserving the tone pattern) and the change from lafaa to lafɛɛ in the hundreds.

Colour words

The three basic colour words of Nafaanra are: wɔɔ ‘black’, finge ‘white’, and ɲiɛ ‘red’. As with adjectives in Senufo languages, the form of the colour words reflects the noun class of the noun that is modified.

• wɔɔ   —   ki wɔ   'it is black'
• finge   —   ki fninge   'it is white'
• ɲiɛ   —   ki ɲina   'it is red'

Carlson (1994:154,710n9,10) lists the cognate forms -ɲyɛ- ‘red, warm colored’ and -fyìn- ‘white, light colored’ in Supyire. He further comments that these adjectives are related to the respective verbs fíníŋɛ́ ‘be white, whiten’ and ɲááŋá ‘redden, be red’, which in turn are causative forms of the now defunct verbs fini ‘be white’ and ɲana ‘be red’ .

Sample sentences

• mùùrà kà ní čàà mè gbú mè é nyìè tɛ́ɛ́ mè kí lóó

story some I want and-FUTURE beat and-FUTURE your ear put and-FUTURE it hear

I want to tell a story for you to hear.

• yɛ́ngè nà kòmó ǹdrá

true that hyena hide-completive

It’s true that the hyena hid himself.

• ké bĺè kà kpáhù wá

it day some frog not-there

On a certain day the frog wasn’t here.

• ẃrè ǹnà pè kúú

he not-CONT them kill-CONT

He wasn’t killing them.

• ná múúrò ḿnà kàà mà ná yo mà

if fish you-PAST-CONT chew-CONT you-not past say-completive that

If you had been eating fish you would not have said that.

Source: Jordan (1978:88–90)

References

There is relatively little published on or in the Nafaanra language. The first linguistic publication to mention Nafaanra is Delafosse (1904), containing some notes on the Nafana people and a fairly extensive comparative Senufo word list, regrettably without proper tonal marking. Rapp (1933) is an appendix to an article on Kulango containing a German-Nafaanra ('Nafana-Sprache') word list of around 100 items, gathered during a stay of four hours at Sampa. Rapp notes in passing that special attention was payed to the marking of the tones (‘besondere Aufmerksamkeit wurde auf die Aufzeichnung der Tonhöhen verwandt’, 1933:66).

After a period of silence on Nafaanra, Painter (1966) appeared, consisting of basic word lists of the Pantera and Fantera dialects. The SIL linguist Dean Jordan published an article on Nafaanra discourse in 1978, and together with his wife Carol Jordan has produced a translation of the New Testament, which appeared in 1984. Kropp-Dakubu's 1980 West African language data sheets vol II contains a few pages on Nafaanra put together by Dean and Carol Jordan, including a phonology, a list of nouns, a list of pronouns, a list of numbers, and some example sentences; tones are not marked. In this data sheet, Jordan mentions that "three books of Nafaara folk tales are published by the Institute of Linguistics Trust". Mensah and Tchagbale in their 1983 linguistic atlas of Côte d'Ivoire include a comparative Senufo word list of about 120 items; Nafaanra is present under the name 'Nafara of Bondoukou'. An orthography of Nafaanra, notably lacking tonal marking, is included in Hartell (1993). The area where Nafaanra is spoken has been the subject of recent archaeological-anthropological studies (Stahl 2004). A translation of the Old Testament is under exegetical revision as of 2005.

Primary sources

• Delafosse, Maurice (1904) Vocabulaires comparatifs de plus de 60 langues ou dialects parlés à la Côte d' Ivoire ou dans les régions limitrophes (avec des notes linguistiques et ethnologiques, une bibliographie et une carte). Paris: Leroux.
• Jordan, Dean L. (1978). "Nafaara tense-aspect in the folk tale", in Joseph Grimes (ed.), Papers on discourse. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 84–90.
• Jordan, Carol & Jordan, Dean (1980a). "Nafaara", in Kropp-Dakubu, M.E. (ed.), West African language data sheets, Vol. II. Leiden: West African Linguistic Society / African Studies Centre, 138–143.
• Jordan, Carol & Jordan, Dean (1980b). "Collected Field Reports on the Phonology of Nafaara", Collected Language Notes 17. Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.
• Painter, Colin (1966) Word lists of two Senufo dialects: Fantera et Pantera. Legon: University of Ghana. (30p)
• Rapp, Eugen Ludwig (1933). Die Náfana-sprache auf der Elfenbeinküste und auf der Goldküste. [The Náfana language in Ivory Coast and Gold Coast], Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen (M.S.O.S.) 36, 3, 66–69.

Secondary sources

• Blench, Roger (1999). Recent Field Work in Ghana: Report on Dompo and a note on Mpre. PDF
• Carlson, Robert (1994). A Grammar of Supyire. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Hartell, Rhonda L. (ed.) (1993). The Alphabets of Africa. Dakar: UNESCO and SIL.
• Manessy, Gabriel (1981) 'Les langues voltaïques', in: Les langues dans le monde ancien et moderne vol. I, Paris, CNRS, 103–110.
• Mensah, E.N.A.; Tchagbale, Z. (1983) Atlas des langues gur de Côte d' Ivoire. Abidjan, Paris: ILA.
• Stahl, Ann (2004). "Making history in Banda: Reflections on the construction of Africa's past", in Historical Archaeology, 38, 1, 50–56.
• Swadesh et. al. (1966) 'A preliminary glottochronology of Gur languages', Journal of West African Languages, 3, 2, 27–65.
• Westermann, Diedrich & Bryan, M.A. (1970 [1952]). The Languages of West Africa. Oxford: International African Institute / Oxford University Press.

Further reading

External links

• The Rosetta Project: Nafaara
• Nafaanra orthography (source: Hartell 1993)
• Ethnologue report on Nafaanra

See also

• Senufo languages
• Map of the Senufo language area