The Dagbani Language -- Pronunciation and Fonts The language of the is called Dagbani. A speaker of the local language would refer to the people as "Dagbamba" and the language as "Dagbaŋli." Until the 20th century, Dagbani existed as a spoken language. Only relatively recently have experts been working on the best way to write the language. The written Dagbani on this site was reviewed by several experts in --Reverend Daniel Wumbee and M. Dawuda Sulley.

Although this site primarily engages with Dagomba dance drumming as instrumental and vocalized music, the fact that most drumming phrases have a basis in the local language means that a great deal of information is given in written Dagbani. In my teaching experience, mispronunciation is reduced if the Dagbani language is written using phonetic fonts, rather than their closest English counterpart. Thus, great effort has gone into spelling and writing (orthography) according to best current practices. Wherever possible, PDF files show the language written with phonetic fonts (AfroRoman for , Linguists Software).

Alhaji Abubakari was an expert in many forms of spoken Dagbani, from the contemporaneous vernacular to the classical and esoteric style found in drum language. However, his ability to read and write was constrained by his father's decision to limit his Western-style schooling so that he could instead achieve excellence in the very demanding skill set of a drummer (see "Life Story of Abubakari Lunna").

My knowledge of Dagbani is modest, with pronunciation being much stronger than grammar and vocabulary. You can hear me reciting the drum language on this site (go to "Drum Language - Audio"). For three weeks in 2003, I formally studied the language at the Language Center in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Ghana. Although this short period of study did not make me a good speaker of Dagbani, the knowledge I gained about the structure of the spoken language did prove extremely important in my understanding of drum language.

My instructor was Mohammed Dawuda Sulley. We used a photocopied text called "Learning Dagbani" that was written and distributed by Mr. Sulley for African students

1 fulfilling their proficiency requirements in two African languages at the university. An edited version of this text, complete with audio files that are keyed to the text, will be available on this site in the future. The following information about the Dagbani language is taken from Sulley's text.

Excepts from Learning Dagbani by M. Dawuda Sulley, edited by David Locke

Alphabet, Orthography, Phonemes The Dagbani sound system is made from vowels, consonants including affricates, and diagraphs or double letter combinations. The phonetic symbols of „, —, ŋ, ɣ, and ˝ are used for correlates of o, e, n, g and z. The Dagbamba have a tendency to elide vowels and slur consonants. Dagbani is a tonal language with two tones, low and high.

Vowels Besides the known English Vowels of a, e, i, o, and u, two others commonly used in Dagbani - „ and —.

Consonants Dagbani is written with the following: b, d, f, g ɣ, h, j, k, l, m, n, ŋ, p s, t, v, w, y, z, and ˝

Digraphs The following occur: gb, kp, , , ŋm, sh

Tone

Dagbani is a tonal language. We may distinguish two tones – high and low. is not marked in the written language since that can be confusing, even for native speakers. The pitch of the on which a word is pronounced can bring about a difference in the meaning of words that are otherwise identical.

2 Vowel elision Vowel elision is a very common phenomenon in spoken Dagbani. In fluent speech, the final vowel at the end of many words is elided. Vowels are always elided before other vowels and often before words beginning with consonants. Orthographically, an is used instead of the elided vowel.

Pronunciation of Phonetic Fonts „ as in the "aw" of "awful" — as in the "e" of bet ɣ as in the "ch" of "loch" ŋ as in the "ng" of "gong" ˝ as in the "z" of "zzz," i.e., a child vibrating its throat to sound like an engine

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