Ligbi language

The Ligbi (or Ligby) people speak a Mande language in Ghana, in the north-west corner of the Brong-Ahafo Region. Ligbi is spoken by approximately 10,000 speakers (1988 GILLBT/SIL). It is fairly closely related to Jula, Vai and Kono. A small population of Ligbi speakers (around 4,000) is reported to live in Ivory Coast (Vanderaa 1991). Ligbi is also known as Wela (Hwela) or Numu. The latter of these refers to a subsection of the Ligbi people; is Dyula for 'blacksmith'. (See blacksmiths of western Africa.)

The Ligbi area in Ghana is bordered to the west by Nafaanra, the Senufo language of the Nafana people. The Ligbi people have come to the area of Begho (Bighu), an ancient trading town on the Tain river in Ghana, in the early 17th century before the Nafana. Ligbi has seven oral and seven nasal vowels. It is a tonal language with two level tones, High and Low. Syllables are of the form (C₁)V(C₂) or N (a syllabic nasal), where CV is the most common syllable type. C₁ can be any of the consonants, whereas the optional C₂ slot can have only nasals homorganic with the following consonants, e.g., "nine houses," "ten houses." V (a vowel) alone occurs word-initial only in personal pronouns, some loan words, and names, e.g., "we have come."

Phonology

Consonants

ConsonantsTemplate:Sfn

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Labial- velar	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	voiced	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Nasal		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink				(Template:IPAlink)
	voiced	(Template:IPAlink)	(Template:IPAlink)
Approximant			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink

• Template:IPAslink is Template:IPAblink between vowels.Template:Sfn
• Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink are Template:IPAblink between vowels.Template:Sfn
• Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAslink, and Template:IPAslink are nasalized between nasal vowels.Template:Sfn
• Template:IPAslink occurs in English and Arabic loanwords.Template:Sfn
• Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink only occur in ideophones.Template:Sfn

Vowels

Oral vowelsTemplate:Sfn

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Close-mid	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Open-mid	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Open		Template:IPAlink

Nasal vowelsTemplate:Sfn

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Close-mid	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Open-mid	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Open		Template:IPAlink

Tones

Ligbi has two level tones, low and high.Template:Sfn

References

Template:Mande-lang-stub