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Gurma (also called Gourma or Gourmantché) is an ethnic group living mainly in Burkina Faso, around Fada N'Gourma, and also in northern areas of Togo and Benin, as well as southwestern Niger. They number approximately 1,150,000.
They might include the Bassaries who live in northern Togo and the Northern Volta of Ghana.
Gurma is also the name of a language spoken by the Gurma (or bigourmantcheba - as they call themselves) people, which is part of the Gur language family. 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,as in blood (misuama), water, minyima, sand (mitambima), fire (mifantama), existence (miyema), state of being crazy (migadima), Gourmantché language (migourmantchema). All trees have a bu-bu and i-di set of prefixes and suffixes in singular and plural, as in busaabu (shea tree) or isaandi (shea trees).
A book about these people was written in 1985 by Dr. Richard Alan Swanson: 'Gourmantché Ethnoanthropology: A Theory of Human Being'. The book presents Gourmantché perception of 'human being' from the perspective of the people themselves, using their own language texts to illustrate concepts. Concepts of Otienu 'God', destiny (licabili), the body (gbannandi), life (limiali), death (mikuuma)and all known terms for human body parts are also discussed.
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