Do You Know the Top 7 Languages Spoken in Guinea-Bissau? 

Do You Know the Top 7 Languages Spoken in Guinea-Bissau? 

Laying near the coast of West Africa, Guinea-Bissau is a country of rich cultural history. From the Portuguese colonisation in the 15^th century to gaining their independent status in the early 1970’s, the country is home to a rich tapestry of historical events, which have aided in the development of the region.

With a population of around 1.9 million, Guinea-Bissau natives speak an assortment of languages and varying dialects, but what if the official language? What other languages are spoken? We will look at the linguistic diversity present in Guinea-Bissau and the top 7 spoken languages throughout the West African country.

Portuguese

The official language of Guinea-Bissau is Portuguese. The Portuguese language was dominant in the country during Portugal’s occupation of Guinea-Bissau, which ended in 1973 when the country unilaterally declared its independence, and after the 1974 Carnation Revolution which overthrew the Estado Novo regime in Portugal. Despite these events, the Portuguese language has remained the official language of Guinea-Bissau, although it is spoken by 167,000 people, a much smaller proportion of speakers than other languages in the country.

 

As well as Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique are two other African countries within which Portuguese is an official language. These countries are known as Lusophone countries and are part of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), an international organisation of countries, made up of nine member states, where Portuguese is the official language. The organisation also includes Brazil. Portugal, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste.

 

Guinea-Bissau Creole

Guinea-Bissau Creole is a Creole language based on Portuguese. Despite not being an official language, it is in fact the most spoken language- making it the lingua franca of the country. Sometimes known as Crioulo or Kiriol, the highly popular language is spoken as a first language by 15% of the Guinea-Bissau population. Increasingly more people are known to have adopted it as a second language, with statistics showing us that approximately 50% of the entire population are fluent in the tongue.

Guinea-Bissau Creole is known to be used widely throughout many official settings, including political and business sectors. As well, the strong social status of the language means it is utilised heavily in the media and more informal settings like shops.

Balanta-Kentohe

Balanta-Kentohe is one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in Guinea-Bissau. In total, the language is spoken by 354,000 people, who account for 26% of the country’s population. Balanta-Kentohe is one of two languages that constitute the Balanta language, the other being Balanta-Ganja, which is spoken primarily in Gambia and Senegal.The Balanta-Kentohe language is spoken by the Balanta people, who make up 30% of Guinea-Bissau’s population.

 

There are two dialects of Balanta-Kentohe: Nhacra (also known as Fora) and Kantohe (also known as Kentohe, Queuthoe). The Nhacra dialect of the Balanta-Kentohe language is spoken in the Oio region, located in northern Guinea-Bissau, whereas the Kantohe dialect is spoken in south-eastern and southern Guinea-Bissau, such as in the Tombali region.

 

Manjak

Manjak, also known as Mandjak, Manjaco or Njak, is one of the Bak languages, which are spoken primarily in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. It is part of the West Atlantic language group, a West African subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family, which, for instance, also features the Wolof and Fula languages. In Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, there are 215,000 Manjak speakers, and an estimated 356,800 Manjak speakers globally. In Guinea-Bissau, the Manjak language is spoken by 12% of the country’s population. Most of the speakers of Manjak in the country are part of the Manjak people. This ethnic group lives mainly in Guinea-Bissau, but also in Senegal, Gambia, as well as Portugal. The Manjak comprise 14% of the country’s total population. There are several dialects of the Manjak language such as Bok, Likes-Utsia, Cur, Lund, and Yu.

 

Fula

Making up part of the Niger-Congo web of languages, Fula is classified as the native tongue of the Fulani people in Africa. The language is not exclusive to Guinea-Bissau, with its widespread use across western and central Africa- it is prevalent within about 20 different countries. Fula is often used in more informal settings as a pose to official settings. There is no official status for the language in the country, but it is still richly spoken within the Fulani community. Within Guinea-Bissau, approximately 16% of the total population speak Fula as their first language- this accounts for an estimated 516,000 people.

 

Mandinka 

Mandinka (also known as Mandingo) is a language spoken by the Mandinka (or Malinke) people; an ethnic group spread across West Africa who are descended from the Mali Empire. Mandinka is one of the Mande languages, which are spoken on the west coast. In Guinea-Bissau, Mandinka is spoken primarily in the north of the country and by around 154,000 people (approximately 7% the overall population), also being widely used in the Casamance region of Senegal and The Gambia, with some variants in Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, and Mali, numbering 1.3 million speakers worldwide as of 2016. Mandinka is a tonal language, meaning that shifts in spoken pitch indicate and distinguish grammatical and lexical meaning. Mandinka has two of these tones – either ‘high’ or ‘low’ – and uses no ‘nasal’ vowels. In terms of a writing system, the Mandinka language has three; Latin, Arabic, and N’ko. Whilst the Latin writing system and alphabet are ‘official’, the Arabic alphabet is also very widely used. In the former system, the letters v, x, z, and q are not used (the letter g is also rare) and any long vowels are written as doubled; aa, oo, ii, ee, uu. The third writing system, N’Ko, was developed by Solomana Kante in 1949 to serve as a script for all Manding languages (languages within the Mande family) in West Africa. N’Ko means I say in all Manding languages and shares some similarities with Arabic in that it is written from right to left, with letters joined at the base. In Guinea-Bissau, it is mostly used in the north-east of the country and the bordering regions in the Ivory Coast and Mali. For those curious, here are some everyday expressions in Mandinka:

 

I ni ke / I ni wale – Hello

Abaraka – Thank you/Blessings

Fowati koten – Goodbye

Ibe Nyaadi – How are you?

Mbe karaito – I am fine

Ntomu (name) leti – My name is…

Dasamo – breakfast

Kontongo – lunch

Simango – dinner

 

Papel

Also known as Pepel, Papei, Oium, or Moium, Papel is spoken by the people of the same name who live mostly in the central coastal regions of Guinea-Bissau. Papel belongs to the Bak language family, a group of languages spoken mostly in the Guinea-Bissau – Senegal region and is linguistically similar to Mankanya and Mandjak. Having 140,000 speakers globally (as of 2006), Papel is used by around 3% of Guinea-Bissau’s population. 79,000 of these speakers live in the Bissau Island region – the country’s capital – with the country’s former president João Bernardo Vieira as a member of this group. In the Bissau area, the use of Papel can be separated into two separate dialects – Biombo in the southwest of the area, and Safim in the northeast. Papel is a non-tonal language and uses a Latin – based script.

 

In conclusion

Despite its relatively small size, Guinea-Bissau is home to a diverse group of languages of various origins, representing multiple ethnic groups and demonstrating the (often overlooked) rich cultural and linguistic history and reality of Africa. If you require interpretation or translation of any of these languages (particularly Portuguese) or any other language-based services, visit Crystal Clear Translation for a quote to find out more.