Notes on Baule Phonology

Baule is one of the most widely spoken languages in the French Ivory Coast; the Handbook of African Languages, Part II, gives the number of speakers as 373,000. It is, according to the Handbook classification, a member of the Anyi-Baule dialect cluster of the Akan language group. Because of its importance, and the fact that no description of it has so far appeared, it is considered worth while to bring forward the present phonological analysis even though it is only provisional; a more definitive statement must await further study in the field.