Ivory Coasts
Learn about the language of the Ivory Coasts, including the writing system, grammar and vocabulary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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ꦡꦠꦊꦡꦭꦨꦩ
ꦡꦠꦊꦡꦭꦨꦩꦥ꦳ꦨ꧀ꦩꦏꦫꦼꦔꦼꦢꦙ ꦢꦭ꧀ꦤꦢꦥ꦳ꦼꦕꦢꦭ꧀ꦤꦪꦼꦧ꦳ꦃꦭꦓꦥꦡꦩꦼꦮꦃꦦ꦳ ꦑ꧀ꦮꦣꦾꦡꦾꦙꦥꦪꦼꦏꦦꦃꦥ꦳꧀ꦩꦡꦠꦭꦼ ꦏ꧀ꦮꦡꦖꦕ꧀ꦔꦃꦣꦡꦭꦕꦓ ꦠꦠꦭꦼꦮꦗ꧀ꦔꦼꦃꦮꦡꦠꦔꦼꦃꦒ ꧊ ꦄꦡꦢꦧ꦳ ꧈ ꦡꦩꦼꦮꦃꦥ꦳ꦼꦡꦠꦭꦼ ꧊ ꦭꦼꦪꦼꦥ꧀ꦩꦑ꧀ꦔꦥ꦳꧀ꦩꦫꦓꦥꦱꦚꦫꦼꦃꦏ꧀ꦮꦑ꧀ꦔꦥ꦳꧀ꦩꦚꦼꦒꦃꦱꦩꦼꦒ ꧈ ꧋

　　　ꦮꦼꦚꦼꦒꦣꦭꦓꦥꦣꦓꦥ

Totalo Tolagboma

TOTALO tolagboma fangboka rongodajo. Danladafocha danlayóvá lagokpa tomowáfo, kwo dyotyojokpayo kakpómfa totalo, kwo tochonchá dotolachago, tatalo wanjówa totanyóga. "A todava!" tomowáfo totalo, "loyonkpa, nkomfaragokpa sanyaró kwo nkomfanyóga samoga."

　　　Wonyóga dolagokpa dogokpa.

The Boy Bathing

A BOY bathing in a river was in danger of being drowned. He called out to a passing traveler for help, but instead of holding out a helping hand, the man stood by unconcernedly, and scolded the boy for his imprudence. "Oh, sir!" cried the youth, "pray help me now and scold me afterwards."

　　　Counsel without help is useless.

The Ivorian language is the largest member language of the Ivoric languages, spoken in Wes Africa. It is spoken by around 600 million people as a native language and by another 50 million as a non-native language. This makes it the second most-spoken native language behind Mandarin Chinese. Ivorian is spoken largely in the Ivory Coasts. However, it is also spoken in Ivorian diasporas worldwide, the largest of which are in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. Older forms of the language have also influenced languages throughout the Americas, primarily Haitian Creole, Jamaican Patois, and African-American Vernacular English.

Ivorian is an agglutinative language; it attaches prefixes to modify the meaning of words, similar to languages like Japanese. Nouns have 12 noun classes, a fancy term for genders. Fortunately, Ivorian is no French, and nouns are not arbitrarily assigned to noun classes. Adjectives agree, or take on the same noun class, as the noun they are modifying. Inalienable possession is a prominent features, meaning words such as "mom" must have "his," "your" or "my" attached to them. Verbs have a voice system or topicalization system similar to Tagalog and Taiwanese languages. Furthermore, verbs can show polypersonal agreement, which is demonstrated in the last two boxes seen below.

The linguistic classification of the Ivorian language is widely debated. Simiilarities between Ivorian and the Bantu lnaguages to the southeast have led some scholars to believe its oldest hypothesized ancestor is the Proto-Niger-Congo language, making Ivorian a distant relative of languages such as Swahili. However, it is more widely believed that Ivorian and the Bantu languages are unrelated, but rather shared features due to contact and language contact. The oldest documented form of Ivorian is Early Archaic Ivoric or Proto-Ivoric, dating back to around 10,000 BCE. However, the earliest ancestor of Ivorian whose script has been fully deciphered is Pre-Classical Ivoric, dating back to 2,000 BCE. It was during this period that Pre-Classical Ivoric absorbed its cousin dialects and languages. It wasn’t until 200 CE that Ivoric would split into unintelligible languages, leading to the birth of the Proto-Ivorian languages.

In languages such as Spanish, nouns are divided into two genders. They are represented fairly consistently with the suffixes ⟨-o⟩ (masculine) and ⟨-a⟩ (feminine). The same goes for Ivorian, but the language has twelve genders, known as noun classes.

Nouns are categorized into noun classes fairly predictably. For example, pencils belong to the 'long' noun class, while trees belong to the 'plant' noun class. However, noun classes can also portray some semantic differences. Using the 'human' noun class on a dog indicates its status as a pet; while the 'animal' noun class indicates its status as a stray or a wild dog. Using the 'phenomenon' noun class on a person indicates high status, while the 'animal' status indicates a lower status.

A

The two dominant word orders in the Ivorian language are subject-verb-object (I see her) an object-verb-subject (her see I). Other word orders may be used and are grammatically valid, though lesser used, primarily used to emphasize certain topics.

KoJano konyonda kaMaryo
ꦑꦗꦤꦼꦑꦚꦼꦢꦁꦏꦩꦫꦾꦼ

John sees Mary

SVO

kɨɟaˈnɨ kɨɲɪˈnda kamaˈrʲɪ

3.ERGATIVE-John 3.ERGATIVE-see 3.ABSOLUTIVE-Mary

KaMaryo konyonda koJano
ꦏꦩꦫꦾꦼꦑꦚꦼꦢꦁꦑꦗꦤꦼ

Mary is seen by John

OVS

kamaˈrʲɪ kɨɲɪˈnda kɨɟaˈnɨ

3.ABSOLUTIVE-Mary 3.ERGATIVE-see 3.ERGATIVE-John

KoJano kaMaryo konyonda
ꦑꦗꦤꦼꦏꦩꦫꦾꦼꦑꦚꦼꦢꦁ

Mary John sees

SOV

kɨɟaˈnɨ kamaˈrʲɪ kɨɲɪˈnda

3.ERGATIVE-John 3.ABSOLUTIVE-Mary 3.ERGATIVE-see

Compare the two sentences: 1.) "the stone hits the man" and 2.) "the man is hit by the stone." The first sentence sounds less natural because it implies that the stone chose to hit the man; as if it had a consciousness of its own. This trait is also present and grammaticalized in Ivorian. Certain noun classes perceived to be more animate come first. The list goes as follows: phenomenon > human > animal > plant > inanimate > abstract. It should be noted that even inanimate objects in the "phenomenon" noun class such as thunder and planets must still come before all else.

When two objects belong to the same noun class, it matters less which is said first. For example, two nouns from the "round" noun class, faces and rocks, are interchangeable in a sentence. Whichever is placed first serves to emphasize the noun. However, when it comes to animate beings, Ivorians typically mind who is said first. Important people or superiors must be placed before less important ones or inferiors.

Similar to European languages like French or Spanish, adjectives must take on the same noun class, grammatical number and case. This manifests in adjectives taking the same prefixes as the noun they are modifying. Adjectives are most frequently placed after nouns, although they can be situated anywhere in a sentence.

The above adjectives are what's known as attributive adjectives. They differ from predicative adjectives, where they would turn into "the crowd is big," "a laptop is broken," and "the houses are beautiful" respectively. Ivorian does not distinguish between attributive and predicative adjectives.

In more complicated adjectives, the adjectives must not only agree by noun class, grammatical number and case with the subject, but the object as well. In short, the adjective must have the same preposition as the subject and the object.

English and multiple other languages have a base-10 system, in which all numbers are derived from the number ten.. For example, eighty-one can be divided into eight (8), -ty (10), and one (1). We can represent this in mathematical notation as 8*10 + 3. Ivorian uses what's known as a base-12 system, in which all numbers are from the number twelve instead. 81 in base-12 mathematical notation is 6*12 + 9.