Introduction

This Kusaal-French-English dictionary is the product of four years of fruitful collaboration between Mike Steinborn and Urs Niggli (SIL in Burkina Faso) with the Kusaasi language Committee. The Kusaasi people originated from Ghana. A group of them settled in present-day Burkina Faso around the year 1800. The vast majority of Kusaasi live in Ghana (about 335,000 speakers in 1997), with only about 17,000 speakers in Burkina Faso.

The 22 Kusaasi villages in Burkina Faso are all found in the south-central province of Boulougou. There is a long dry season from October to May, and a rainy season from June to September. About 80% of the Kusaasi are subsistence farmers, drawing their livelihood from agriculture (millet, rice, ground nuts, sweet corn and beans) and livestock (cows, goats, sheep, and chicken). Quite a few Kusaasi are traders. In the dry season, many young people go to Ghana, mostly to work on the big plantations, and then return at the beginning of the rainy season to work on their own farms.

The great majority—about 84%—of the Kusaasi practice their African traditional religion; about 12% are Christians and about 4% Muslims (Steinborn, 2003, p.10). There is great religious tolerance between the adherents of those three religions.

BF & GH Kusaal

Language family tree for Kusaal b