Bassa people (Liberia)

This article is about ethnic group in Liberia. For other uses, see Bassa people (Cameroon).
Bassa
Bassa women in 1922
Total population
c. 1,005,000
Regions with significant populations
 Liberia900,000[1]
 Ivory Coast65,000
 Sierra Leone40,000
Languages
Bassa, Kru Pidgin English
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Krahn, Kru, Grebo, Jabo

The Bassa people are a West African ethnic group primarily native to Liberia. The Bassa people are a subgroup of the larger Kru people of Liberia and Ivory Coast. They form a majority or a significant minority in Liberia's Grand Bassa, Rivercess, Margibi and Montserrado counties.[2] In Liberia's capital of Monrovia, they are the largest ethnic group.[3] With an overall population of about 1.05 million, they are the second largest ethnic group in Liberia (18%), after the Kpelle people (26%).[1] Small Bassa communities are also found in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

The Bassa speak the Bassa language, a Kru language that belongs to the Niger-Congo family of languages.[4] They had their own pictographic writing system but it went out of use in the 19th century, was rediscovered among the slaves of Brazil and the West Indies in 1890s, and reconstructed in early 1900 by Thomas Flo Darvin Lewis.[5][6] The revived signs-based script is called Ehni Ka Se Fa.[7]

In local languages, the Bassa people are also known as Gboboh, Adbassa or Bambog-Mbog people.[8]

  1. ^ a b People and Society: Liberia, CIA Factbook, United States
  2. ^ James Stuart Olson (1996). The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood. pp. 78–79. ISBN 978-0-313-27918-8.
  3. ^ Patricia Levy; Michael Spilling (2008). Liberia. Marshall Cavendish. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-7614-3414-6.
  4. ^ Bassa, Ethnologue
  5. ^ Paul Rozario (2003). Liberia. Gareth Stevens. pp. 52–53. ISBN 978-0-8368-2366-0.
  6. ^ Bassa: A language of Liberia: Writing, Ethnologue
  7. ^ Ayodeji Olukoju (2006). Culture and Customs of Liberia. Greenwood. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-313-33291-3.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Asante2009bassa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).