Bayot is spoken by about 35,000 people, as counted in 2021 to 2022, in villages near Nyassia southwest of Ziguinchor in southern Senegal and in the Cacheu region of northwestern Guinea-Bissau, with a smaller presence in the Gambia. It has two main dialect clusters, Essin and Kugere in Senegal and Arame and Gubaare in Guinea-Bissau, distinct enough that some are sometimes treated as separate languages. Bayot is grammatically structured like the Jola languages of the Atlantic-Congo family, but it has a non-Jola pronoun system and roughly half its vocabulary comes from outside Jola and Atlantic sources, so scholars debate whether it is best described as a language isolate with heavy Jola borrowing or as the most divergent member of the Jola group.
Facts
RegionSouthern Senegal southwest of Ziguinchor near Nyassia, northwestern Guinea-Bissau along the Senegalese border, and the Gambia 1 Speaker Count Proto-Language StatusGrammatically Jola apart from a non-Jola pronominal system; roughly half its vocabulary is non-Jola and even non-Atlantic, so it may be a language isolate with substantial Jola borrowing (relexification), though clearly distinct from other Jola languages 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Bayot Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead paragraph 1
Bayot is a language of southern Senegal, southwest of Ziguinchor in a group of villages near Nyassia, and in northwestern Guinea-Bissau, along the Senegalese border, and in the Gambia.
Infobox language, speakers field, dated 2021 to 2022, ref e27 (Ethnologue 27)
speakers = {{sigfig|35,200|2}}
Lead paragraph 4
Bayot is grammatically Jola, apart from a non-Jola pronominal system. However, perhaps half its vocabulary is non-Jola and even non-Atlantic. It may therefore be a language isolate with substantial Jola borrowing (relexification). In any case, Bayot is clearly distinct from (other) Jola languages.
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