Lyélé Language

It is spoken in the towns of Réo, Kyon, Tenado, Dassa, Didyr, Godyr, Kordié, Pouni and Zawara. The language is also sometimes known by the wider term Gurunsi.

Syntactically, Lyélé is a SVO language with postpositions. Determiners and adjectives are placed after the noun.

Unlike most other languages, Lyélé has only one paradigm for all pronouns, including demonstratives, interrogatives, and relatives. Tone can sometimes differentiate between an interrogative and a demonstrative, but this may be a result of interrogative intonation rather than tone marked on the word itself.

The nasalization is indicated with the tilde on the vowel nasalized ⟨ã, ẽ, ɛ̃, ĩ, õ, ũ⟩.

Tones are indicated using accents, except for the midtone :

• grave accent for low tone;
• the acute accent for the high tone;
• caron for rising tone;
• the circumflex accent for the falling tone.