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The Dagbani Language -- Pronunciation and Fonts

The language of the Dagomba people 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 orthography--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
Unicode, 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 Ghana 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

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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, ch, ny, ŋm, sh

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

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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
apostrophe 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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