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Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, North, Gur, Central, Northern, Oti-Volta, Western, Northwest, Dagaari-Birifor, Dagaari (Ethnologue).
The Birifor language is related and partially intelligible with Dagaare (Ethnologue).
Northwest Ghana and southwestern Burkina Faso. Ethnologue specifies "Southern Dagaare" in Ghana, and "Northern Dagara" and "Dagaari Dioula" in Burkina Faso.
According to information compiled from Ethnologue:
Ethologue finds that the three varieties are quite separate:
Ethnologue notes:
"has been the principal language of evangelisation in north-western Ghana since the advent of the missionaries in the colonial era. In present-day language policy, Dagaare occupies a considerably important position. It is one of the nine official literacy languages of Ghana. As a result the Bureau of Ghana languages publishes educational material in it. Dagaare is taught and offered for degree courses in the country's higher institutions such as the University of Ghana, Accra, and the University College of Winneba. Further, it is broadcast over the Ura FM radio, which serves the three regions in Northern Ghana." (Bodomo, n.d.)
The Latin alphabet is used. It uses extended characters. Tones are indicated by diacritics.
The following extended characters are used for Dagara in Burkina Faso: ɛ, ɔ, ʋ, ɓ, ɩ, ŋ, ƴ (according to the keyboard layout for the language available at http://www.abcburkina.net/sedelan/contenu/services/edition.html )
Alphabets as reported by Hartell (1993) and presented in Systèmes alphabétiques:
Sample Dagaare text from "Language Museum" (NB- may not be official orthography): http://www.language-museum.com/d/dagaare.htm
Fonts with extended Latin ranges would be necessary.
For Dagara in Burkina Faso, see http://www.abcburkina.net/sedelan/contenu/services/edition.html
(There is no ISO-639-1 or -2 code for Dagaare.)
Dagaare, Southern
Dagaari Dioula
Dagara, Northern
(see also Dagaare Linguists' Homepage
Dagaare Linguists' HomePage http://www.hku.hk/linguist/staff_ab.DagaareLinguist.html
Journal of Dagaare Studies http://www.hku.hk/linguist/staff/Bodomo/JDS/all.html
Edition en langue nationale de Burkina Faso http://www.abcburkina.net/sedelan/contenu/services/edition.html
Latin & diacritic character picker http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/pickers/latin/
If the northern and southern varieties of Dagaare are close enough to permit localization of some applications in a single version, then perhaps a single locale (requiring an ISO-639 code for it as a "macrolanguage") would be necessary.
Bodomo, Adams (n.d.), "The Dagaare language and its speakers: Introduction" http://www.hku.hk/linguist/staff/intro_dagPro.htm
Chanard, Christian (2006), Systèmes alphabétiques des langues africaines, LLACAN, CNRS, http://sumale.vjf.cnrs.fr/phono/
Hartell, Rhonda L., ed. (1993), The Alphabets of Africa. Dakar: UNESCO and SIL. (The French edition, published the same year, is entitled Alphabets de Langues Africaines).
SIL International, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, "Dagaare, Southern," http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=dga
______, "Dagaari Dioula," http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=dgd
______, "Dagara, Northern," http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=dgi
SIL International, "ISO 639 Code Tables," http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp
U.S. Library of Congress, "ISO 639.2: Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages: Alpha-3 codes arranged alphabetically by the English name of language," http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
Wikipedia, "Dagaare language," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagaare_language
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