Gourmanché language

Gourmanchéma
Gulimancema
Native to	Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Niger
Ethnicity	Gurma people
Native speakers	900,000 (1999–2012)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Gur Northern Oti–Volta Gurma Gourmanchéma
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gux
Glottolog	gour1243[2]

People	Bigulimanceba
Language	Migulimancema

Gourmanchéma (Goulmacema, Gourma, Gourmantche, Gulimancema, Gulmancema, Gurma) is a major language of the Gurma people spoken in from Burkina Faso across northern Togo and Benin and as far as Niger.

All nouns within this language are classified into eight noun classes, identified by their prefixes and suffixes in both singular and plural. All mass nouns, states of existence, languages, for example, begin with the prefix mi- and end with the suffix -ma (that is, they take the circumfix mi—ma), as in blood (misuama), water (minyima), sand (mitambima), fire (mifantama), existence (miyema), state of being crazy (migadima), Gourmantché language (migourmantchema). All trees have a set of circumfixes bu—bu and i—di in the singular and plural, as in busaabu (shea tree) and isaandi (shea trees).

References

1. Gourmanchéma at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Gourmanchema". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.