Duun language

Duun
Duungooma Dzuungoo
Region	Mali, Burkina Faso
Native speakers	150,000 (2018)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Mande Western Northwestern Samogo Duun
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: dux – Duungooma dnn – Dzùùngoo
Glottolog	duun1242  Duungooma dzuu1241  Dzùùngoo

Duun is a Mande language of Mali. There are three varieties of Duun, West Duun, or Duungooma (also known as Du, Samogho-sien) and Banka or Bankagooma, in Mali, and East Duun, or Dzùùn(goo), in Burkina Faso. These are clearly distinct but have a reasonable degree of mutual intelligibility with each other.

Dialects of East Duun, Kpan (Kpango, Samoro-guan) and Dzùùngoo (Samogo-iri), are easily intelligible.

Phonology

The phonology of the Dunn languages contains 26 consonants and 12 vowels.^[2] The following phonemes are in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Consonant Phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labial-velar
Obstruent	Occlusive	p b	t d	c ɟ	k g	kp gb
	Affricate		ts dz
	Fricative	f v	s	ʃ ʒ	x
Sonorant	Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	ŋm
	Approximant	w	l	j

Vowel Phonemes

		Unrounded	Rounded
Closed	Oral	i	u
	Nasal	ĩ	ũ
Half-closed		e	o
Mid-open	Oral	ɛ	ɔ
	Nasal	ɛ̃	ɔ̃
Open	Oral	a
	Nasal	ã

Alphabet

The Duun alphabet has the following letters^[3]

1. a
2. b
3. c
4. d
5. e
6. ɛ
7. f
8. g
9. gb
10. h
11. i
12. j
13. k
14. kp
15. l
16. m
17. n
18. ɲ
19. ŋ
20. ŋm
21. o
22. ɔ
23. p
24. r
25. s
26. sh
27. t
28. u
29. v
30. w
31. x
32. y
33. z
34. zh

References

1. Duungooma at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
   Dzùùngoo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Solomiac, Paul (2007). Phonologie et morphosyntaxe et du Dzùùngoo de Samogohiri (phd thesis). Ph.
3. "Wayback Machine" (PDF). www.sil-mali.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-06-30. Retrieved 2025-11-18.