Mossi language

Mossi
Mooré
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 Mossi
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

The Mossi language (known in the language as Mooré; also Mòoré, Mõõré, Moré, Moshi, Moore, More) 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.

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. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Mossi". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Cf. Kabore (1985) : (p.44) for the consonants, (p.85-86) for the vowels.

External links

• PanAfrican L10n wiki page on Moore
• Database of audio recordings in Mòoré - basic Catholic prayers

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)