Senufo languages

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Senufo
Senoufo
Geographic distribution	northern Ivory Coast, southern Mali, southwestern Burkina Faso, western Ghana
Linguistic classification	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Senufo
Subdivisions	Suppire–Mamara Karaboro Senari Kpalaga (Palaka) Tagwana–Djimini Nafaanra
Glottolog	senu1239
Map of the Senufo language area showing the major groups and some neighbouring languages.

The Senufo or Senufic languages (Senoufo in French) has around 15 languages spoken by the Senufo in the north of Ivory Coast, the south of Mali and the southwest of Burkina Faso. An isolated language, Nafaanra, is also spoken in the west of Ghana. The Senufo languages constitute their own branch of the Atlantic–Congo sub-family of the Niger–Congo languages. Garber (1987) estimates the total number of Senufos at some 1.5 million; the Ethnologue, based on various population estimates, counts 2.7 million.^{[year needed]} The Senufo languages are bounded to the west by Mande languages, to the south by Kwa languages, and to the north and east by Central Gur languages.

The Senufo languages are like the Gur languages in that they have a suffixal noun class system and that verbs are marked for aspect. Most Gur languages to the north of Senufo have a two tone downstep system, but the tonal system of the Senufo languages is mostly analysed as a three level tone system (High, Mid, Low).

The Senufo languages have been influenced by the neighbouring Mande languages in numerous ways. Many words have been borrowed from the Mande languages Bambara and Jula. Carlson (1994:2) notes that ‘it is probable that several grammatical constructions are calques on the corresponding Bambara constructions’. Like Mande languages, the Senufo languages have a subject–object–verb (SOV) constituent order, rather than the subject–verb–object (SVO) order which is more common in Gur and in Niger–Congo as a whole.