World Language Map

Where is Dagbani spoken?

Dagbani (Dagbanli) is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in Ghana and Togo. The outlined area on the map shows where.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Dagbani is spoken

Dagbani is spoken in 2 countries: Ghana and Togo.

Country
Ghana
Togo

On the map, Dagbani is drawn as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007. The area was digitised by the Glottography project (doi:10.5281/zenodo.18613195), and the atlas is cited on the data sources page. Language areas are generalisations, and cities and borderlands are multilingual, so the outline does not mean that everyone inside it speaks Dagbani.

How many people speak Dagbani?

Wikidata gives about 3.2 million first-language speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2013). It also lists about 1 million second-language speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2013). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Dagbani sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Dagbani as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Atlantic-Congo
  2. Volta-Congo
  3. North Volta-Congo
  4. Gur
  5. Central Gur
  6. Northern Central Gur
  7. Bwamu-Oti-Volta
  8. Oti-Volta
  9. Nuclear Oti-Volta
  10. Gurma-Yom-Oti-Volta Occidental
  11. Oti-Volta Occidental
  12. Nuclear Oti-Volta Occidental
  13. Southeast Western Oti-Volta
  14. Mampruli-Dagbani
  15. Dagbani

Related languages

Other languages in the Mampruli-Dagbani group:

More about Dagbani

Codes: ISO 639-3 dag, Glottolog dagb1246. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Dagbani

Where is Dagbani spoken?

Dagbani is spoken in Ghana and Togo. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.

How many people speak Dagbani?

Wikidata gives about 3.2 million first-language speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2013). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled. It also lists about 1 million second-language speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2013).

Which language family is Dagbani in?

Glottolog places Dagbani in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, North Volta-Congo, Gur, Central Gur, Northern Central Gur, Bwamu-Oti-Volta, Oti-Volta, Nuclear Oti-Volta, Gurma-Yom-Oti-Volta Occidental, Oti-Volta Occidental, Nuclear Oti-Volta Occidental, Southeast Western Oti-Volta and Mampruli-Dagbani.

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