Dompo language

Dompo
Native to Ghana
Ethnicity 970 (2000)[1]
Native speakers
 65  (1999)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 doy
Glottolog domp1238[2]

Dompo is an endangered unclassified language of Ghana. Speakers are shifting to Nafaanra. It is spoken adjacent to the main town of the Nafaanra people, Banda, Brong-Ahafo Region, Ghana.

Dompo has numerous parallels with the Gonja language, but does not appear to be directly related to it. Blench (1999) suggests three possibilities:

  1. it is a Gonja dialect that has come under heavy external influence;
  2. it is a related Guang language that has been relexified, largely from Gonja;
  3. it is of some other source, and relexified, largely from Gonja.

None of the Dompo names for wild plants or animals resemble Gonja, suggesting that the last is the most likely. It may even be a relic of the pre-Niger–Congo languages of West Africa.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Dompo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Dompo". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.