Kasena language

Kasena or Kassena (Kasem or Kassem) is the language of the Kassena ethnic group and is a Gur language spoken in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana and in Burkina Faso.

Orthography
An independent 30-letter alphabet called the Goulsse alphabet (from gʋlse, “writing” in Mooré) was devised by Burkinabé app developer Wenitte Apiou, Babaguioue Micareme Akouabou and Kassem linguist Fernand Ki in summer of 2021 based on the geometrical patterns found in Kassena architecture. The alphabet is also planned to be applicable for the related Mooré language as well.

Tone
Kasena has three tones, a high tone, a mid level tone and a low tone. Tonal changes either change the lexical meaning of a word or its grammatical function.

Lexical A

„I“ Á

„You (PL)“

Grammatical Wu

Negation Wú

Futur

Noun Class System
There are five classes of nouns that can be identified in Kasena. These classes correspond to grammatical genders and are differentiated in terms of number, such that there are five classes for singular nouns and five classes for plural nouns.

Personal Pronouns/Possessive Pronouns
There are two classes of personal pronouns. One class is referring to humans, whereas the other class is referring to non-human entities. The personal pronouns are also used as possessive pronouns, thus there is no special form for possessive pronouns in Kasena.

Human personal pronouns

Non-human personal pronouns

Reciprocal Pronouns
Reciprocity is expressed by the pronoun daanɪ, which sometimes occurs as a prefix or suffix.

Ba 	soe   	daanɪ.

3PL 	like 	each.other

„They like each other.“

Reflexive Pronouns
Reflexivity is expressed by a personal pronoun to which either tɪtɪ or katɪ ('-self')is added.

O cɔgɪ o tɪtɪ.

3SG destroy 3SG self

„He destroys himself.“

Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns are formed on the basis of the personal pronouns for non-human entities to which the suffix -lʊ is attached.

Word Order
The Kasena language has a basic SVO word order.

Ada 	diim   	toŋe.

Ada 	yesterday   	work.PFV

„Ada worked yesterday.“