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The Lyélé language (Lele) is spoken in the Sanguié Province of Burkina Faso by approximately 130,000 people known as Lyéla, Léla, Gourounsi or Gurunsi. It is spoken in the towns of Réo, Kyon, Tenado, Dassa, Didyr, Godyr, Kordié, Pouni and Zawara. The language is also sometimes known by the wider term Gurunsi.

Syntactically, Lyélé is a SVO language with postpositions. Determiners and adjectives are placed after the noun.

Unlike most other languages, Lyélé has only one paradigm for all pronouns, including demonstratives, interrogatives, and relatives. Tone can sometimes differentiate between an interrogative and a demonstrative, but this may be a result of interrogative intonation rather than tone marked on the word itself.

Writing system

The nasalization is indicated with the tilde on the vowel nasalized ⟨ã, ẽ, ɛ̃, ĩ, õ, ɔ̃, ũ⟩.

Tones are indicated using accents, except for the midtone :

• grave accent for low tone;
• the acute accent for the high tone;
• caron for rising tone;
• the circumflex accent for the falling tone.

References

1. Lyélé at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 8
3. ^ Nikiema 1993, p. 50.
4. Nikiema 1993 does not list the circumflex accent but it is used in the 2001 Bible translation published by Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Works cited

• Nikiema, Norbert (1993). "Burkina Faso". In Rhonda Hartell (ed.). Alphabets des langues africaines. Dakar: Unesco – Bureau régional de Dakar et Société international de linguistique (SIL). pp. 41–56.

External links

• Database of audio recordings in Lyélé – basic Catholic prayers
• Global Recordings Network: Lyélé Language

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