Notes on Two Languages in the Senufo Group: II. Sup'ide

The informant for this material is a native of the village of Mulaso, French Sudan, about 25 miles west of Sikasso. A brief comparison of the speech of a Sikasso informant indicates that there is little dialect difference between the two places. One interesting difference noted is the apparent absence in Sikasso of a distinction between two morphotonemic classes of verbs which exists in Mulaso. Another brief comparison of the speech of an informant from some 45 miles northeast of Sikasso indicates considerable dialect difference; the range of phonetic variation within phonemes seems to be much less, and some differences in the phonemic system were observed. However, the latter informant and the Mulaso informant understood each other easily, and both insisted that their speech was ‘the same’. The precise extent of the Sup'ide area is, however, not known.