Bijago language

Bidyogo
Bijago
Native to	Guinea-Bissau
Region	OffshoreBissagos Islands
Native speakers	36,000 (2022)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Atlantic Senegambian Bak Bidyogo
Dialects	Kagbaaga Kajoko (Orango) Anhaqui (Anhaki) Kamona
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bjg
Glottolog	bijo1239

BijagoorBidyogois the language of theBissagos ArchipelagoofGuinea-Bissau.There are some difficulties of grammar and intelligibility between dialects, with the Kamona dialect being unintelligible to the others.

Dialects are as follows:

• Anhaki on Canhabaque (Roxa) Island
• Kagbaaga onBubaqueIsland
• Kajoko onOrangoandUnoIslands.
• Kamona on the northernCaravelaandCaracheIslands

Characteristics

The Kajoko dialect is one of the few in the world known to use alinguolabial consonant,the voiced stop to tap[d̼~ɾ̼],in its basic sound system (Olson et al. 2009).

Classification

Bijago is highly divergent. Sapir (1971) classified it as an isolate within theWest Atlantic family.However,Segerershowed that this is primarily due to unrecognized sound changes, and that Bijago is in fact close to theBak languages.For example, the following cognates in Bijago andJoola Kasa(a Bak language) are completely regular, but had not previously been identified (Segerer 2010):

Gloss	Bijago	Joola Kasa
head	bu	fu-kow
eye	nɛ	ji-cil

See also

• Bijogo word list(Wiktionary)

References

• Olson, Kenneth S., D. William Reiman, Fernando Sabio & Filipe Alberto da Silva. 2009. The voiced linguolabial plosive in Kajoko. Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 45(1), 519-530.
• Segerer, Guillaume. La langue bijogo. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1997.
• Segerer, Guillaume. Lʼorigine des Bijogo: hypothèses de linguiste. In Gaillard, Gérald (Ed), Migrations anciennes et peuplement actuel des Côtes guinéennes, Paris: LʼHarmattan, 2000, pp. 183–191
• Segerer, Guillaume. La langue bijogo de Bubaque (Guinée Bissau). Louvain, Paris: Editions Peeters, 2002. 310 pp.
• Guillaume Segerer& Florian Lionnet 2010. "'Isolates' in 'Atlantic'".Language Isolates in Africaworkshop, Lyon, Dec. 4