During the time period in which the language developed, it has been hypothesized that there was little conflict in the region which resulted in a significant amount of separation between the ancestors of the Supyire and other cultures of the area.
Recently, close contact with other tribes has resulted in a dictionary full of loan words that have been assimilated into everyday language.
2 million speakers, extends from the southwest corner of Mali and covers a significant portion of the northern Ivory Coast.
It is hypothesized that the Senufo descended from the Kenedugu people, who ruled over Mali and Burkina Faso during the 17th century.
Individuals make a living off of the land, primarily by cultivating yams, millet, and sorghum, a tradition that has perpetuated through their ancestral history.
With the integration of agricultural processes from neighboring cultures, bananas and manioc have also been successfully cultivated.
Care of livestock, including chickens, sheep, goats, and guinea fowl, provides a significant source of nutrition.
In Supyire culture it is rare that any single person holds excessive power and there are only two traditional classes- the laborers and the farmers.
Storytelling also plays a significant role in this culture and one of the first written documents of the Supyire was a story entitled "Warthog’s Laughter Teeth".
The Senufo practice of female circumcision has made this culture recognizable on a worldwide level.
The practice of female circumcision, done for cultural or religious reasons, is meant to mark a rite of passage as girls become women.
The predominant religion of the region is Muslim, although most "bushmen" tend to instead place their faith in human-like gods.
Supyire has a voicing distinction and contains a glottal stop, a common characteristic in African languages.
Voiceless stops have particular limitations and are only used in three environments: word initial, such as tàcwɔ̀ ("fiancée"); medially in a stressed syllable, as in nupéé; or following a nasal, such as in kàntugo ("behind").
Two oral vowels, /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are not as well-established as the other five because the difference between /ɛ/ and /a/ is neutralized and, when speaking quickly, it is very difficult to distinguish between /ɑ/, a variant of /ɔ/, and /a/.
It was noted that boys who spent their days herding cows communicated with each other strictly through whistled language, which only elaborated vowel length and pitch.
Bantu, also a subgroup of Niger–Congo languages, places different forms of the same word into varying gender classes.
This confusion over noun class distinction does not occur in any Senufo language, Supyire included.
Also found in this category are terms that describe people such as ŋaŋa ("twin") or cevoo ("friend").
Abstracts are used to convey emotional states and include words such as sícyere ("insanity") and wyere ("cold").
Plural gender 1 nouns do not adhere so strictly to the rules and can vary in consonant usage.
Although Niger–Congo languages tend to have complicated verb morphology systems, Supyire does not follow this trend.
The intransitive prefix is marked only by a toneless nasal, and only exists with verbs that begin with voiceless stops.
It also differs from the first prefix in that it uses a distinct tone and it appears on all verbs, not just those beginning with voiceless stops.
The following examples provide evidence for this sentence structure: KàDSuG1.SGúNARRŋ́́-káréIP-gosàgoaPROGci-rétree-DEF.G4pààn-nì.chop-IPFVKà u ú ŋ́́-káré sà a ci-ré pààn-nì.DS G1.SG NARR IP-go go PROG tree-DEF.G4 chop-IPFV“He went to chop the trees”Lùpà-àna mosquito-G3.SGsìNARRǹ-tὲὲnIP-sitùG1.SGnà.onLùpà-àn sì ǹ-tὲὲn ù nà.
167–169 As their traditional numbers are complex, the Supyire increasingly use the decimal system of the neighboring Bambara people.
[3] As is true in other languages in the region, numerals that refer to money (in this instance, the CFA franc) are counted in groups of five.[2]: p.