Ivory Coast (French: Côte d'Ivoire) is a multilingual country. One estimate of the number of languages spoken there is 78.
The official language, French, was introduced during the colonial period. This language is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country.
The seventy or so indigenous languages fall into five main branches of the Niger–Congo family. In the southeastern quadrant are Kwa languages, some such as Baoulé and Anyin (2–3 million and 1 million speakers) part of a dialect continuum with Ashante in Ghana, others such as Attié (half a million) more divergent. Baoulé is spoken east of Lake Kossou and at the capital Yamoussoukro, and Anyi along the Ghanaian border. In the southwestern quadrant are Kru languages, such as Bete and We (Gure/Wobe), half a million apiece, and Dida (a quarter million), related to the languages of Liberia. In the northwest, along the Guinean border and across to Lake Kossou in the center of the country, are Mande languages, such as Dan (1 million speakers) and Guro (half a million, on the lake). The lake and the Bandama River divide the Kwa east of the country from the Kru and Mande west. Across the center north are various Senufo languages, such as Senari (1 million speakers). In the northeast corner, surrounding Comoé National Park, are a quarter million speakers each of Kulango, the Gur language Lobi, and the Mande language Jula (French: Dioula), which is a lingua franca of neighboring Burkina Faso.
There are also three million or so speakers of immigrant languages, mostly from neighboring countries and above all from Burkina Faso. Ethnic tensions in the north between immigrant and native Ivoirians, as well as between the Mande/Senoufo north and the Kru/Kwa south, were a large factor in the Ivorian civil wars.
Education for the deaf in Ivory Coast uses American Sign Language, introduced by the deaf American missionary Andrew Foster.
Famous quotes containing the words languages, ivory and/or coast:
“The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)
“We have fallen in the dreams the Ever-living
Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,
And find their laughter sweeter to the taste
For that brief sighing.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,—to realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)