bilingual in Twi, the regional lingua franca, to some extent. Using the ILR scale: 50% of Nafana have limited working proficiency in Twi, while 20% have general professional proficiency The remaining 30% have either elementary proficiency (15%) or no proficiency at all (15%). 15–25% of the Nafana people are literate in Twi, whereas only 1–5% are literate in Nafaanra. 65 Dompo people living in the close vicinity of Banda have shifted to Nafaanra. Dompo is their first language, thought to be extinct until a field work trip of Blench in 1998 proved the contrary. Classification Maurice Delafosse was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra, calling it "a much dispersed Senufo tribe" in 1904. Westermann in his classification of West-African languages, also grouped Nafaanra with Senufo, apparently based on the word list found in Rapp. This classification is confirmed by Bendor-Samuel, who bases his internal Senufo classification on the comparative word lists in Swadesh et al. It is less clear which particular Senufo branch Nafaanra is related to most closely. Bendor-Samuel gives a 60% cognate relationship on the Swadesh list with "Tenere" (a western Senari dialect), 59% with "Central Senari" (the Senari dialect spoken around Korhogo), and 43% with the non-Senufo languages Mo (or Deg), Kabre (or Kabiye), and Dogon. The relatively low scores of about 60% point to a rather distant relationship. Likewise, Mensah and Tchagbale establish an intercomprensibility factor of 38% with "Tyebaara" (Senari), concluding that Nafaanra is only distantly related to this dialect. Nafaanra has been tentatively linked to Palaka (Kpalaga) by Manessy, whereas Mills suggests a relation with the southern Tagwana–Djimini branch. Sounds Vowels Nafaanra has seven oral and five nasalized vowels. A difference in vowel length can make a difference in meaning, as in , "to go", vs. , "fetish" or o, "we" vs. oo, "we will". Similarly, the phonemic contrastiveness of nasalization can be seen in sii, "to be giving birth," vs. , "to build". The vowel system closely resembles that of other Senufo languages. It is like the two Northern Senufo languages Supyire and Mamara in having only five nasal against seven oral vowels. Consonants Tone Like the other Senufo languages, Nafaanra has three contrastive tones: High, Mid and Low. Tone is normally not marked in the Nafaanra orthography. Examples are: kúfɔ̀ "yam" (High-Low) dama "two pesewas (coin)" (Mid) màŋà "rope" (Low) The Mid tone sometimes has a rising feature, the High tone sometimes