Kissi language

Not to be confused with Kisi language (Tanzania).

Kissi (or Kisi) is a Mel language of West Africa, There are two dialects, northern and southern, and both are tonal languages. The northern dialect is spoken in Guinea and in Sierra Leone. The southern dialect is spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The two dialects are notably different, but are closely related.

Kissi
Native to	Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone
Ethnicity	Kissi people
Native speakers	910,000 (2017–2020)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Mel Bullom–Kissi Kissi
Dialects	Luangkori Tengia Warn Liaro Kama Teng Tung
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: kss – Southern Kissi kqs – Northern Kissi
Glottolog	kiss1245
Linguasphere	(Kisi, incl. 94-BAB-aa Kisi-N. & 94-BAB-ab Kisi-S.) 94-BAB-a (Kisi, incl. 94-BAB-aa Kisi-N. & 94-BAB-ab Kisi-S.)

In Guinea, the main places Kissi is spoken are the cities of Kissidougou and Guéckédou and their préfectures.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a

/o, e/ can also approximate to the sounds [ɪ, ʊ].

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labial-velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t		k	kp
	voiced/imp.	ɓ	ɗ			(gb)
	prenasalized	mb	nd	(ɲɟ)	ŋg	(ŋmgb)
Affricate				t͡ʃ
Fricative		f	s				h
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant			l	j		w

Kissidougou dialects preserve a distinction between /r/ and /l/ phonemes that have been merged as allophones in dialects south of Guéckédou. For instance, la huŋ means exactly the same as ra huŋ. Also, "thank you" is realized as barika around Kissidougou and balika south of Guéckédou. [r] is considered an allophone of /l/ in Kissidougou.

/w/ can also have an allophone of [v] when preceding front vowel sounds.

The voiced labial-velar stop /gb/ occurs only in onomatopoeic phrases, and medial gb can be regarded as an allophone of its voiceless counterpart.^[2]

• gbaala 'outdoor kitchen'
• Gbaŋgbaŋ (a river in Kissidougou)
• gbɛŋgbɔ 'stool'
• maagbana 'city taxi'

Tone

Kissi has four tones: two register and two contour. The two register tones are level and high, and the two contour tones are a rising mid tone and a falling high tone. Kissi also has an extra-high tone, but occurs only sparingly, functioning in only a few grammatical contexts.^[2]

Grammar (northern Kissi)

Pronouns

Kissi pronoun	Pronunciation	English pronoun	Kissi example	English translation
y	/i/	I	y tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.	I'm going there.
a	/a/	you	a tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.	You're going there.
o	/o/	he/she	o tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.	He's going there.
n	/n/	we	n tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.	We're going there.
la	/la/	you (plural)	la tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.	You're going there.
aa	/aː/	they	aa tyo kɔlaŋ loŋ.	They're going there.

As you can already see from these examples, verbs aren't conjugated like English verbs, but they are inflected by tone.

Kissi pronoun	Pronunciation	English pronoun	Kissi example	English translation
ya	/ja/	me	o tyo ya lɔ. yɔŋgu ya ho. / k'ya ho.	He's going to beat me. Give me that.
nɔm	/nɔm/	you	y tyo nɔm lɔ.	I'm going to beat you.
ndu	/ndu/	Hhim /her	y tyo ndu lɔ. o tyo ndu pilɛ lɔ.	I'm going to beat him / her. He's going to beat himself.
na	/na/	us	o tyo na lɔ.	He's going to beat us.
nia	/nia/	you (plural)	o tyo nia lɔ.	He's going to beat you.
ndaa	/ndaː/	them	o tyo ndaa lɔ.	He's going to beat them.

Articles

Definite and indefinite articles do not exist in Kissi, so muɛi means "the knife" as well as "a knife". If an object has to be defined (because there are more than one, for example), "this" is used:

example: muɛi coŋ - this knife

If that is not exact enough, an object is described using adjectives.

yɔŋgu ya muɛi. / k'ya muɛi. - Give me a/the knife.

yɔŋgu ya muɛi bɛndɛi. / k'ya muɛi bɛndɛi. - Give me the big knife.