Bangime is a language isolate spoken by about 3,500 people, called the Bangande, in seven villages including Bara, Bounou, Niana, Dieni, Digari, Doro and Due on the Dogon high plateau near Bandiagara in Mali's Mopti region. Although the Bangande consider themselves ethnically Dogon, their language has no demonstrated relationship to the Dogon languages or to any other known family. Ethnologue rates it 6a, vigorous, meaning it remains in daily use across generations without formal institutional support. Researchers have suggested the surrounding cliffs gave the Bangande both linguistic isolation and physical refuge, possibly including escapees from historical slave caravans.
Facts
RegionSpoken in seven villages of the Bangande valley on the western edge of the Dogon high plateau in eastern Mali, near Bandiagara in the Mopti Region. 1 Speaker CountEthnologue classifies the language as 6a Vigorous, the mid-scale level for languages in vigorous daily use by all generations. Proto-Language StatusLong known to be highly divergent from the neighboring Dogon languages and first proposed as a language isolate by Roger Blench (2005); the Bangande people consider their own language Dogon, but it is not related to any Dogon language. A further, more speculative proposal by Blench that Bangime and Dogon share a deeper Nilo-Saharan substratum remains unconfirmed. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Bangime Language
Wikimedia FoundationClassification section
Long known to be highly divergent from the (other) Dogon languages, it was first proposed as a possible isolate by Blench (2005).
Location subsection
Roger Blench reports that Bangime is spoken in 7 villages east of Karge, near Bandiagara, Mopti Region, central Mali (Blench 2007).
Lead paragraph
Bangime ... is a language isolate spoken by 3,500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali
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