Lyélé language

Not to be confused with Lele language.
Lyélé
Lele
Region Burkina Faso
Native speakers
 130,000  (2001)[1]
Niger–Congo

  • Atlantic–Congo

Language codes
ISO 639-3 lee
Glottolog lyel1241[2]

The Lyélé language (Lele) is spoken in the Sanguié Province of Burkina Faso by approximately 130,000 people known as Lyéla, Léla, Gourounsi or Gurunsi. It is spoken in the towns of Réo, Kyon, Tenado, Dassa, Didyr, Godyr, Kordié, Pouni and Zawara. The language is also sometimes known by the wider term Gurunsi.

Syntactically, Lyélé is a SVO language with postpositions. Determiners and adjectives are placed after the noun.

Unlike most other languages, Lyélé has only one paradigm for all pronouns, including demonstratives, interrogatives, and relatives. Tone can sometimes differentiate between an interrogative and a demonstrative, but this may be a result of interrogative intonation rather than tone marked on the word itself.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Lyélé at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Lyele". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 8