Dan

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A language of Côte d’Ivoire

ISO 639-3
dnj
Alternate Names
Da, Gio, Gio-Dan, Ya, Yacouba, Yakuba
Population

1,300,000 in Côte d’Ivoire (2012 V. Vydrin). 650,000 in Eastern Dan, 650,000 in western Dan. Population total all countries: 1,610,800.

Location

18 Montagnes Region, Man (except Kouibly and Facoubly), Danané, Biankouma prefectures. 19 villages. Also in Guinea, Liberia.

Language Status

5 (Developing).

Classification
Niger-Congo, Mande, Eastern, Southeastern, Guro-Tura, Tura-Dan-Mano, Tura-Dan
Dialects

Blowo (Western Dan), Gweetaawu (Eastern Dan). At least 38 subdialects. In Liberia speakers in Garplay understood Côte d’Ivoire Yacouba dialect recordings as follows: Danane, Koulinle, Kale: very well; Blosse: quite well; Bloundo: reasonably well; dialects east of Blouno: considerable difficulty (M. Bolli 1971).

Typology

Whistle speech reported

Language Use

All domains. All ages. Some also use Jula [dyu]; educated Dan also use French [fra].

Language Development
Literacy rate in L1: 1% or more. Literacy rate in L2: 25%–50%. Taught in primary schools. Dictionary. Grammar. NT: 1981–1993.
Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Dan
Writing
Latin script.

Also spoken in:

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