1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Mande
  3. Genus: Western Mande

Bambara

WALS coordinates: 12° 30′ N, 7° 30′ W

spoken in Mali

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Bambara
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Simple
      Tone Simple tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Mixed
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Nominal Syntax
      Action Nominal Constructions Double-Possessive
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Both types of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb OV
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb OVX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Mixed
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Correlative
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
      Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Locational
      Predicative Adjectives Mixed
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Non-reduction
      Relativization on Obliques Non-reduction
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      Tea Others
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Logical meanings