Western Plains Dogon

Western Plains Dogon
Kan Dogon
RegionMali, Burkina Faso
Native speakers
(260,000 cited 1998)
Niger–Congo?
  • Dogon
    • Plains
      • Western Plains Dogon
Dialects
  • Tomo Kan
  • Tengu Kan
  • Togo Kan
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
dtm – Tomo Kan
dtk – Tene Kan
Glottologwest2508

The Dogon dialects of the western plains below the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali are mutually intelligible. They are sometimes called the Kan Dogon because they use the word kan (also spelled kã) for varieties of speech. The dialects are:

The latter two are traditionally subsumed under the name Tene kã (Tene Kan, Tene Tingi), but Hochstetler separates them because the three varieties are about equidistant.

There are a quarter million speakers of these dialects, about evenly split between Tomo Kan and Tene Kan, making this the most populous of the Dogon languages. There are a few Tomo-speaking villages just across the border in Burkina Faso.

Phonology

Consonants

Tomo-Kan consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop/
Affricate		 voiceless p t t͡ʃ k ʔ
voiced/nasal b d d͡ʒ g ʔ̃
Fricative voiceless (ɸ) s h
voiced (z)
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Tap ɾ
Approximant central w l j
nasal w̃ (j̃)
Togo-Kan consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop/
Affricate		 voiceless p t (t͡ʃ) k (ʔ)
voiced b d d͡ʒ g
Fricative (f) s (ɣ) (h)
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Tap central ɾ
nasal ɾ̃
Approximant central w l j
nasal w̃ j̃

Vowels

Oral Nasal
Front Back Front Back
Close i iː u uː ĩ ĩː ũ ũː
Close-mid e eː o oː ẽ ẽː õ õː
Open-mid ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː ɛ̃ ɛ̃ː ɔ̃ ɔ̃ː
Open a aː ã ãː

References

  1. ↑ Tomo Kan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Tene Kan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 Dyachkov, Vadim (2019). A Grammar of Tomo Kan Dogon.
  3. ↑ Heath, Jeffrey (2015). A Grammar of Togo Kan. University of Michigan.