Lyélé language

Not to be confused with Lele language.

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.

Lyélé
Lele
Region	Burkina Faso
Native speakers	210,000 (2009)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Gur Southern Gurunsi Northern Lyélé
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lee
Glottolog	lyel1241

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.^[2]

Writing system

Lyélé alphabet.^[3]

a

b

c

d

e

ə

ɛ

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

ly

m

n

ŋw

ny

o

ɔ

p

r

rh

s

sh

t

u

v

w

y

z

zh

The nasalization is indicated with the tilde on the vowel nasalized ⟨ã, ẽ, ɛ̃, ĩ, õ, ɔ̃, ũ⟩.^[3]

Tones are indicated using accents, except for the midtone^[3] :

• grave accent for low tone;
• the acute accent for the high tone;
• caron for rising tone;
• the circumflex accent for the falling tone.^[4]