The Kakabe dialectal continuum: A lexicostatistical study

Abstract

Kakabe, an understudied language in Guinea (Mokole < Western Mande < < Mande < Niger-Congo), is spoken by several ethnic groups, mainly of inferior social status, most of which are bilingual in Pular. There are four dialects of Kakabe: Northern (the Kankalabe area), Central (villages to the north-west, east and southeast of Timbo), Kuru-Maninka and Wure-Kaba Maninka. The Northern and Central dialects are close to each other linguistically, their speakers refer to themselves as “Kakabe”, and these dialects can be regarded as comprising “nuclear Kakabe”; meanwhile, the speakers of Kuru-Maninka and Wure-Kaba Maninka reject being identified as “Kakabe”, and their varieties have far fewer loans from Pular. A lexicostatistical study based on the Swadesh 100-item wordlist has been carried out. It confirmed the preliminary hypothesis of a particular affinity between the “core dialects” and showed that the other two dialects are further removed from them, but not as distant as the Mogofin (Mixifore) language spoken to the south of Boke (extreme NW part of the Republic of Guinea). Therefore, from a linguistic viewpoint, the Wure-Kaba Maninka and Kuru-Maninka varieties can be regarded Kakabe dialects despite the fact that their speakers do not consider themselves Kakabe.