Western Plains Dogon

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Western Plains Dogon is a group of closely related dialects spoken in the western plains of Mali, with a few speakers in Burkina Faso. They belong to the Dogon branch of the Niger-Congo language family. About 260,000 people spoke these dialects in 1998, roughly split between Tomo Kan and Tene Kan, making Western Plains Dogon the most spoken branch of the Dogon languages.

The main varieties are Tomo Kan, Tene Kan, and Togo Kan (also called Kan). The dialects are largely mutually intelligible, so speakers can usually understand one another. They are sometimes grouped under the name Kan Dogon because kan means “speech” in these languages. Some linguists treat all three as one group, while others see them as three closely related but separate varieties. A few Tomo-speaking villages exist just across the border in Burkina Faso.