Dioula / English / French Dictionary

For most speakers in the southwest of Burkina Faso, the Dioula language is not their mother tongue, but is spoken readily in their daily life with people of other ethnic groups. It is very important as a trade language. Dioula is spoken by approximately 12 million people, 3 million of them live in Burkina Faso, the rest in the neighboring countries. Some people describe Dioula as a simpler language or trade language of Bambara while others say that Dioula is related to Bambara as American English is related to British English. Some consider Dioula, Bambara and Malinke as the same language, implying that Dioula describes the same language in C te d'Ivoire and in Burkina Faso and that Bambara and Malinke are names for the same language used in Mali. But, linguists consider each one as a distinct language, clearly identified as three languages of the Mand family. This dictionary contains 6,000 terms in English, Dioula, and French. As the Bible translation was only recently completed in Dioula (1997 NT and 2013 OT), this dictionary represents an early effort to provide literacy materials for the Dioula people. We anticipate that regular updates will be issued. Updates, suggestions, and corrections should be directed to dioula_language@researchonline.net.