Baoulé language

Baoulé
Wawle
RegionIvory Coast
EthnicityBaoulé people
Native speakers
5.3 million (2021)
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3bci
Glottologbaou1238

Baoulé (native name: Wawle), also known as Baule or Bawule, is an Akan language spoken in central and southern Ivory Coast, including in the regions of Lacs, Lagunes, Gôh-Djiboua, Sassandra-Marahoué, Vallée du Bandama, Woroba, and Yamoussoukro, by approximately 5.3 million people. It is a Kwa language of the Akan branch, forming a dialect continuum with Anyin and closely related to Nzema and Sehwi. It is the common language of the Baoulé people, the largest ethnic group in Ivory Coast.

Written works

In 1946, portions of the Bible translated into Baoulé were first published; the full New Testament followed in 1953. The complete Bible was published first in 1998, by the Bible Society in Abidjan.[citation needed]

In late 2024, Aristide Kouamé, an Ivorian Wikimedian who got the idea while attending Wikimania 2023, assembled a team to create a Baoulé Wikipedia in Wikimedia Incubator. The first Baoulé-language articles appeared in early 2025, and the incubated wiki has since grown to six people. It would be the first wiki in any of the indigenous languages of Ivory Coast.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial-
velar
Plosive voiceless p t c k kp
voiced b d ɟ g gb
Fricative voiceless f s
voiced v z
Nasal m n ɲ
Lateral l
Trill r
Approximant j w

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a

Of these vowels, five may be nasalized: /ĩ/, /ɛ̃/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /ɔ̃/.

Tones

Baoulé has five tones: high, low, mid, rising, and falling.

Orthography

Baoulé uses the following letters to indicate the following phonemes:

Uppercase A B C D E Ɛ F G GB I J L K KP M N NY O Ɔ P S T U V W Y Z
Lowercase a b c d e ɛ f g gb i j l k kp m n ny o ɔ p s t u v w y z
Phoneme /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /ɛ/ /f/ /g/ /gb/ /i/ /ɟ/ /l/ /k/ /kp/ /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ /o/ /ɔ/ /p/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /v/ /w/ /j/ /z/

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Baoulé at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  2. ↑ Koffi, Ettien N'da (1990). The interface between phonology and morpho(phono)logy in the standardization of Anyi orthography (PDF).
  3. ↑ Project, Joshua. "Baule in Côte d'Ivoire". joshuaproject.net. Retrieved 2026-04-11.
  4. 1 2 3 KPremnath-WMF (2026-10-07). "Six people are building the first Wikipedia in Baoulé — Côte d'Ivoire's most widely spoken indigenous language". Diff. Archived from the original on 7 October 2026. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
  5. 1 2 "Système alphabétique de la langue baoulé". Retrieved 2017-01-29.
  6. ↑ Kouadio N'guessan, Jérémie; Kouame, Kouakou (2004). Parlons baoulé: langue et culture de la Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: L'Harmattan.
  7. ↑ "PHOIBLE 2.0 -". phoible.org. Retrieved 2020-01-03.

Further reading