Baoulé language

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Baoulé (native name wawle), also called Baule or Bawule, is a language spoken in central and southern Ivory Coast by about 5.3 million people (2021). It belongs to the Niger-Congo language family, in the Central Tano branch of Kwa, and forms a dialect continuum with Anyin. It is closely related to Nzema and Sehwi. Baoulé is the main language of the Baoulé people, the largest ethnic group in Ivory Coast. The language uses the Latin alphabet. It has five nasal vowels: /ĩ, ɛ̃, ã, ũ, ɔ̃/ and five tones: high, low, mid, rising, and falling. Bible portions appeared in 1946, the New Testament in 1953, and the full Bible in 1998, published by the Bible Society in Abidjan.