Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 29, 2026

Samwe language

Samwé (samoe), also known as Wara, is a Gur language of Burkina Faso. Dialects are Negueni-Klani, Ouatourou-Niasogoni, and Soulani. Niasogoni speakers have difficulty with Negueni, but not vice versa.

Last revised
Jun 29, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
427 w
Citations
18
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Samwe
Wara
RegionBurkina Faso
EthnicitySamba
Native speakers
(4,500 cited 1993)1
Language codes
ISO 639-3wbf
Glottologwara1292
ELPWara

Samwé (samoe), also known as Wara (ouara, ouala), is a Gur language of Burkina Faso. Dialects are Negueni-Klani, Ouatourou-Niasogoni, and Soulani. Niasogoni speakers have difficulty with Negueni, but not vice versa.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants2
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial-
velar
Plosive voiceless p t c k kp
voiced b
Nasal m n
Fricative f s
Flap ɾ
Approximant l j w
  • /b/ can be lenited to [β̞] between vowels.3
  • /t/ has a free variant [d] after nasals, vowels, and other consonants.3
  • /c/ is voiced [ɟ] after nasals and between vowels.3
  • /k/ is often [g] or [ɰ] between vowels. It tends to stay voiceless at morpheme boundaries.4
  • /kp/ becomes voiced [gb] between vowels or after nasals. /kp is not allowed before /u/.4
  • [ʔ], which is not phonemic, occurs intervocalically between the same vowel.5
  • /f/ is always voiceless.6
  • /s/ is voiced [z] intervocalically and after nasals, [ʃ] before /ia/ and /ie/, and [s] elsewhere. /s/ can be lenited to [ɹ], which Ouattara represents as [z̞]. As with stops, voicing and lenition are in free variation.7
  • /ɾ/ can also be realized as [r] or [ɹ].8 /ɾ/ is also in free variation with /n/ in some words. Sometimes, /ɾn/ becomes /nn/ or /rr/.9
  • /l/ and /n/ are contrastive, but roughly 20 words have /l~n/ in free variation.9

Vowels

Samwe has 20 vowels: 7 short oral vowels, 7 long oral vowels, 3 short nasal vowels, and 3 long nasal vowels.

Oral vowels10
Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close i iː u uː
Close-mid e eː o oː
Open-mid ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː
Open a aː
Nasal vowels10
Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close ĩ ĩː ũ ũː
Open ã ãː

Samwe has two types of vowel harmony: ATR harmony and front-back harmony. /ɛ, ɔ/ do not occur in stems with /i, e, o, u/.11 Front and back vowels (/i, e/ and /u, o) do not co-occur in disyllabic imperative verb stems, but this rule is not followed in other verb forms.12 /a/ is neutral in both types.13

Notes

Notes

  1. Samwe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Ouattara 2015, p. 96.
  3. Ouattara 2015, p. 98.
  4. Ouattara 2015, p. 99.
  5. Ouattara 2015, p. 100.
  6. Ouattara 2015, p. 105.
  7. Ouattara 2015, pp. 105–106.
  8. Ouattara 2015, p. 110.
  9. Ouattara 2015, p. 111.
  10. Ouattara 2015, p. 120.
  11. Ouattara 2015, p. 155.
  12. Ouattara 2015, p. 158.
  13. Ouattara 2015, p. 155, 158.
References

References