Bâ̰a̰

The Sambla balafon is a highly productive speech surrogacy tradition performed by specific griot families specializing in the instrument (Strand 2009). The instrument is played by three musicians simultaneously, but only the treble notes (played by the oldest and most advanced player) encode messages in Seenku, the language spoken by the Sambla people. The instrument encodes both lexical as well as grammatical tone, but post-lexical tone processes are not encoded (McPherson 2019). In addition, some aspects of syllable structure are encoded in the number of strikes, and the rhythms of the surrogate track speech timings very precisely (McPherson 2021). The instrument is used to communicate with audience members, ask for money, sing praises, as well as communicate with other musicians and the spirit world (McPherson 2019).

Strand, Julie. (2009). The Sambla xylophone: Tradition and identity in Burkina Faso. PhD thesis, Wesleyan University. McPherson, Laura. (2019). The talking balafon of the Sambla: Grammatical principles and documentary implication. Anthropological Linguistics 60.3: 255-294. McPherson, Laura. (2021). Categoricity, variation, and gradience in Sambla balafon segmental encoding. Frontiers in Communication 6: 652635.