FSI. More basic course

• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 380
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Author: M Lehr, J Redden, A Balima
Publisher: FSI
Publication Date: 1966
Number of pages: 419

The More language is spoken by the Mossi people who live, along with Bambara and Fula speaking people, in the central part of Upper Volta. There are about two million native speakers. Unofficially there are estimated to be from 1,700,000 Mossi (Europe-France Outremer, March, 1964) to 2,200,000, (Skinner, E., The Mossi of the Upper Volta). Approximately one million more people also use the language regularly although it is not their first or native language.
Language Family
More belongs to the Niger-Congo family, a very large family of languages spoken south of the Sahara. It is surrounded by a number of very closely related languages, the closest being Dagomba, Kusasi, Nankanse, Talensi, Mamprusi, Wala, Dagari, Birifor and Namnam which are spoken south and southwest of Ouagadougou in Upper Volta and northern Ghana. (Greenberg, Joseph H., The Languages of Africa, International Journal of American Linguistics, Volume 29, Number 1, Part II, January 1963.)
The Language of this Manual
This book is based on the speech of Adama Balima, a Mossi from Upper Volta. He lived in Tenkodogo during his childhood, and moved to Ouagadougou in his early teens. His speech, therefore, must be considered as a mixture of the More spoken in Tenkodogo and Ouagadougou.
Mr. Balima's speech is, of course, represented with complete accuracy only on the accompanying tape recordings of which the printed text is merely a transcription. The student, user of this manual, should follow his instructor's example even when his pronunciation, choice of vocabulary, or turn of phrase differs from what appears on these pages. It is hoped that the general format will, nevertheless, prove suggestive, and that, with appropriate substitutions to fit local usage, the dialogs, drills and narratives may be used with instructors speaking different dialects.

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Африканские языки;Языки гур;Море