South Mande Reconstruction: Initial consonants1 - Langues mandé ...

necessary some serious corrections (for a comparative analysis ofGrégoire's paper, see division 3.2.4.).1.2. Since 2000, a considerable change took place. Within the frameworkof the Swiss-Russian joint research project 'Mande Lexicology' supportedby the Swiss National Foundation of Scientific Research (grantSUBJ 062156.00), a team of Russian researchers and studentsaccomplished six field trips to Côte d'Ivoire working on grammars anddictionaries of nearly all the languages of the South Mande group. Only apart of the language data collected during the trips has been handled sofar, but even at the current stage, creation of a relatively reliablecomparative database became possible, from which stems the presentedreconstruction of the Proto-South Mande consonant system.1.3. Before proceeding to the reconstruction, I am going to present ashort survey of the language group and the sources of the language data.A preliminary genetic filiation of the languages of the group is representedon Diagram 1, which is based on my experience of work with theselanguages and needs further elaboration. On this diagram, dotted linesrepresent strong horizontal relationships between languages.Diagram 1. Genetic tree of South Mande languagesProto-South MandeMano Dan Tura Mwan GbanGio Blo Gweeta Kla Wan BengGuroYaure1.3.1. The languages of the South Mande group, a subbranch of theEastern Mande branch of the Mande family, are located almost exclusivelyin Côte d'Ivoire. The only exception is Mano, spoken mainly in thenorth of Liberia, plus a small compact area at the extreme South of Guinea.I used two language manuals of Mano: [DeZeeuw & Kruah 1981] and[Neal et al. 1946], as well as my modest field notes for the Guinean dialect