Spoken only in a cul-de-sac valley in Dogon country in east-central Mali, Bangime is the most enigmatic language isolate in the whole of interior West Africa. It is apparently a Basque-like survival of a formerly widespread language family, now boxed into this small valley by the expansion of Niger-Congo languages (Dogon, Bozo, Mande) on all sides. This book brings out the full glory of its grammar, especially its 3-level tone system.
