Bole language

Not to be confused with Dibole language.

Bole
bòo pìkkà
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Bauchi State, Gombe State, Yobe State, Plateau State
Native speakers	250,000 (2023)
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic West Chadic Bole–Angas Bole–Tangale (A.2) Bole (North) Bole
Dialects	Bara Fika
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bol
Glottolog	nucl1695

Pìkkà
People	Am Pìkkà
Language	Bòò Pìkkà

Bole (bòo pìkkà, also known as Bolanchi, Ampikka, Bopikka, Bolewa, Bolawa) is a West Chadic language spoken in Nigeria. Dialects include Bara and Fika, spoken in the Fika Emirate. It is spoken by around 250,000 people. Bole is written with the Latin alphabet. Bole has two tones, a high tone marked with an acute accent and a low tone marked with a grave accent.

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Open		a aː

Consonants

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labial–velar	Glottal
Plosive		p b	t d			k g		ʔ
Fricative		f	s z	ʃ				h
Affricate				tʃ dʒ
Nasal		m	n		ɲ
Trill			r
Lateral			l
Approximant					j		w
Prenasal		ᵐb	ⁿd ⁿz	ⁿdʒ		ᵑɡ
Glottalized		ɓ	ɗ		ˀj

Alphabet

Bole alphabet

A

B

Ɓ

C

D

Ɗ

E

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

ʼY

Z

a

b

ɓ

c

d

ɗ

e

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

t

u

v

w

y

ʼy

z

Further reading

• Alhaji Maina Gimba. 2000. "Bole Verb Morphology," University of California, Los Angeles PhD dissertation.
• Bole-English-Hausa dictionary Archived 2018-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
• English-Bole Wordlist Archived 2018-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
• Papers and Other Works on Bole from UCLA Deprecated link archived 2016-12-19 at archive.today
• OLAC resources in and about the Bole language