Baga, or Barka, is a dialect cluster spoken by the Baga people of coastal Guinea. The name derives from the phrase bae raka Slaves trading place ( a mispronounced bae=Arabic for sellers and Raka= Arabic for slaves)and understood by the local as 'people of the seaside' outcast people. Most Baga are bilingual in the Mande language Susu, the official regional language. Two ethnically Baga communities, Sobané and Kaloum, are known to have abandoned their (unattested) language altogether in favour of Susu.

Varieties

The varieties as distinct enough to sometimes be considered different languages. They are: The extinct Baga Kaloum and Baga Sobané peoples had spoken Koga and Sitemu, respectively. Neighboring Baga Pokur is not closely related.

Geographical distribution

Geographical distribution of Baga varieties, listed from north to south, according to Fields-Black (2008:85): Geographical distribution and demographics of Baga varieties according to Wilson (2007), citing a 1997 colloquium talk at Lille by Erhard Voeltz:

Noun Class Systems

Baga has prefixes for eight noun classes:

Vocabulary

Below is a selection of basic vocabulary in Baga Maduri: