| Bagirmi | |
|---|---|
| tàrà ɓármà | |
| Native to | Chad, Nigeria |
| Ethnicity | Bagirmi |
Native speakers | (45,000 in Chad cited 1993 census)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bmi |
| Glottolog | bagi1246 |
Bagirmi (also Baguirmi; autonym: tàrà ɓármà) is the language of the Bagirmi people of Chad belonging to the Central Sudanic family, which has been tenatively classified as part of the Nilo-Saharan superfamily. It was spoken by 44,761 people in 1993, mainly in the Chari-Baguirmi Region, as well as in Mokofi sub-prefecture of Guéra Region.[2] It was the language of the Sultanate of Bagirmi (1522-1871) and then the Wadai Empire before the Scramble for Africa.
During the 1990s, Bagirmi was given written form and texts providing basic literacy instruction were composed through the efforts of Don and Orpha Raun, Christian missionaries of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America, late in their Chadian careers. In 2003, Anthony Kimball developed a font to support the Bagirmi alphabet and a Keyman input method for Latin keyboards, and the body of published Baguirmi literature continues to expand. The majority of this literature was distributed in Chad by David Raun, a missionary and the son of Don and Orpha Raun, at a token cost as a service to the Bagirmi-speaking peoples of Chad.