Mossi language

Mooré
Mõõré
Native to	Burkina Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Togo
Ethnicity	Mossi
Native speakers	7.6 million (2007)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Gur Northern Oti–Volta Western Oti-Volta Northwestern Mooré
Language codes
ISO 639-2	mos
ISO 639-3	mos
Glottolog	moss1236[2]
Majority areas of Mossi speakers, in pink, on a map of Burkina Faso.

Person	Moaaga
People	Moose
Language	Mòoré

Mooré (known in the language as Mõõré; also Mòoré, Mooré, Moré, Moshi, Moore, More) or simply the Mossi language, is one of two official regional languages of Burkina Faso, closely related to the Frafra language spoken just across the border in the northern half of Ghana and less-closely to Dagbani and Mampruli further south. It is the language of the Mossi people, spoken by approximately 5 million people in Burkina Faso, plus another 60,000+ in Mali and Togo. While Mooré is often referred to as "the Mossi language," many Burkinabé of other ethnic groups also speak Mooré, as it is the lingua franca in rural regions where knowledge of French is very limited.

Phonology

The Mossi language consists of the following sounds:^[3]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Occlusives	Unvoiced	p	t		k	ʔ
	Voiced	b	d		ɡ
Nasal		m	n
Fricatives	Voiceless	f	s			h
	Voiced	v	z
Liquid			l / r
Semivowels		w		j

Remark:

• The semivowel /j/ y is pronounced [ɲ] (palatal nasal) in front of nasal vowels.

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
Close		i		u
	Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid		e		o
Open			a

Remark:

• All the vowels (other than /e/ and /o/) are pronounced equivalently to their nasal counterparts.
• All the vowels (oral and nasal) are pronounced equivalently to their lengthened counterparts.
• Other linguists include the vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/; here, these vowels are analyzed as diphthongs (/ɛ/ is considered to be ea, and /ɔ/ is considered to be oa).

Orthography

In Burkina Faso, the Mossi alphabet uses the letters specified in the national Burkinabé alphabet.

burkinabe mossi alphabet
A	ʼ	B	D	E	Ɛ	F	G	H	I	Ɩ	K	L	M	N	O	P	R	S	T	U	Ʋ	V	W	Y	Z
a	ʼ	b	d	e	ɛ	f	g	h	i	ɩ	k	l	m	n	o	p	r	s	t	u	ʋ	v	w	y	z
Phonetic values
a	ʔ	b	d	e	ɛ	f	ɡ	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	r	s	t	u	ʊ	v	w	j	z

See also

• Languages of Burkina Faso

References

1. Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mossi". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Cf. Kabore (1985) : (p.44) for the consonants, (p.85-86) for the vowels.

External links

• PanAfrican L10n wiki page on Moore

Learning materials

• Protestant Mission, Assemblies of God (Around 1955 CE - 1961 CE). More (Language of the Mossi Tribe) Phrase Book. Ouagadougou, Upper Volta: World Digital Library. Check date values in: |date= (help)