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Classification

Not to be mistaken with Basa or Basaa, which are completely different, Bassa is one of the 16 or so languages spoken in Liberia, which is located in West Africa.

Language classification: Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, Kru, Western, Bassa

Speakers

In 1991 the recorded number of speakers is 350,000, and in 2012 this number increased to 412,000 in Liberia alone and 417,730 worldwide.

Origin of the name "Bassa"

The place where Bassa people are mostly located at were once called the "Gboo Territory"(the area around today's Liberia and some other countries that surround it), which was named after a chief of the Bassa people, but later the Europeans arrived in the coast of Liberia attempting to trade for iron, pepper and slaves, and the then chief was referred to as "Mr. Rock" or "Father Stone", and in the Bassa Language, Bah means "master/father" and Saw means "Rock", so the chief who did the trade with the Europeans was called "Bah Saw". According to the same source, the Europeans at first called the people "Bah Saw Hyohn Bey", which means "the People of the Father Stone", but then they just shortened the name to "Bah Saw", or "Bassa" because the old name was too long. This was how the name "Bassa" was originated.

Culture

in the Bassa culture, strangers are cared for, and treated with kindness, respect and dignity, even if the strangers turn out to be unfriendly and hostile.

Masks carving is a key mode of expression in Bassa culture, and also there are full-bodied statues carved "in honor of a favorite spouse, important family member or ancestor".

Linguistic Aspects

According to the article, Genius of the Bassa Language, Bassa is a "language of war and warriors",and similar to other warlike nations, Bassa people have developed a language using mostly monosyllabic words: HYE (fire), GWET (war), NOL (kill), KUT (fist). There is a good reason for that: The fighters and warriors would be best served in a confrontation or a battle if their commanders give orders in monosyllabic terms, like LEN (fire), LEN NYE (shoot him), NOL NYE (kill him), TEE MAN NUGA (crush the little animal).

History of The Alphabet

The name of Bassa alphabet is called Vah, which means 'to throw a sign'. The alphabet went almost extinct and fell out of use in Liberia during the 19th century. But in early 20th century, a Bassa researcher Dr. Flo Darvin Lewis was able to discover the system was still in use among some former slaves who were of Bassa origin, who were at that time living in Brazil and West Indies, he was able to learn it himself and then tried to revive the alphabet. He introduced it in Liberia and he even set up a school to teach it. Right now it is being revived by the Bassa Vah Association, and is also used in the printing of some texts such as newspaper and literature

Tones

Like most Nigerian languages, Bassa is a tone language and important distinctions of meaning are based on tones. It has five tones: high, grave(low),mid-low, drag, and double. Bassa has 7 vowels, which gives the language 35 vowel sounds in total.

Note: There are some older documents that say there are only four tones: high, mid, low and fall, but more recent documents would say that there are five.

Modification

According to A Preliminary Tonal Analysis of Bassa Language, there are three modifications in the tones of the language.

1, mid-low glide becomes high-low glide when following a high toneme, and becomes a low glide when following a low toneme;

2, the second vowel of a double vowel is assimilated to the tone of the first vowel if it has a low tone; and

3, the first vowel of a cluster is assimilated to the one following it if the first one is a low tone and the one that follows it is a high tone.

Grammar

Tenses

Present Tense

Positive: Just the stem

Negative: se + stem

Positive and negative

Past Tense

In the Bassa language, there are three different forms of expressing something that happened in the past, which are: regular past, remote past, and recent past.

Future Tense

Positive: mu + stem;

Negative: se + stem + mu

Continuative

Positive: nì + stem

Negative: se + stem + nì

Narrative

Bassa Question Particles

Bassa people tend to use present tense in narratives, and almost never use the past tense.

Interrogative

Question Particles: what/how, where, when, what, and why

Sometimes the particles can be contracted

Shortening of Verbs

From the article, Genius of the Bassa Language, it can be learnt that verbs, which are the most important words in Bassa sentences, will always consist of two syllables: I + the root word in question, as in IBOG (to assemble). But one is most likely to hear only the root of the word, "'BOG", not the preceding "I" in informal speech. This is another characteristic of a warrior's trying to reduce the word to its minimum. There is here a difference between the Bassa and the English languages. The Bassa "I" in "IBOG" corresponds to the English "TO". Both specifies that this is a verb, but while it's easy to swallow a "I" and end up with "bog", it is not easy to avoid using a "to" to specify verbs in the English language.

Counting to 10

ɖò (dough) - one

sɔ̃́ (sawe)- two

tã (tah) - three

hĩinyɛ (he nyay) - four

hm̀m̌ (hmm) - five

mɛ̀nɛ̌ìn-ɖò (muhnain dough) - six

mɛ̀nɛ̌ìn-sɔ̃́ (muhnain sawe) - seven

mɛ̀nɛ̌ìn-tã (muhnain tah)- eight

mɛ̀nɛ̌ìn-hĩinyɛ (muhnain he nyay)- nine

ɓaɖa-bùè (blah bway) - ten