The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur, belong to the
Niger–Congo languages. There are about 70 languages belonging to
this group. They are spoken in the sahelian and savanna regions
of West Africa, namely: in Burkina Faso, southern Mali,
northeastern Ivory Coast, the northern halves of Ghana and Togo,
northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger; with the easternmost
Gur language Baatonun, spoken in the extreme northwest of
Nigeria. Like most Niger–Congo languages, the ancestor of Gur
languages probably had a noun class system; many of today's
languages have reduced this to a system of nominal genders or
declensions or no longer have a class system. A common property
of Gur languages is the verbal aspect marking. Gur languages are
tonal. The tonal systems of Gur languages are rather divergent.
Most Gur languages have a two tone downstep system. Koelle first
mentions twelve Gur languages in his 1854 Polyglotta Africana,
which represent ten languages in modern classification. Notably,
he correctly identifi