Eastern Dagbani Nayahali is the name for the Eastern dialect of the Dagbani language. It is spoken in and around the town of Yendi (known as Naya in the local dialect), the traditional capital of the Dagbon kingdom in northern Ghana. 

Key Details

• Language: Dagbani (or Dagbanli), a Mabia (Gur) language belonging to the Oti-Volta subfamily of the Niger-Congo language family.
• Speakers: There are approximately two million total speakers of Dagbani, predominantly in the Northern part of Ghana.
• Dialects: Dagbani has three major, mutually intelligible dialects:
  • Nayahali (Eastern dialect), centered around Yendi.
  • Tomosili (Western dialect), centered around the administrative capital, Tamale.
  • Nanunli (also Eastern, or Southern dialect), spoken in and around Bimbilla.
• Dialectal Differences: Differences between Nayahali and the other dialects are mainly phonological and lexical (pronunciation of certain words or vowels), with no known syntactic differences.
• Orthography Note: The word “Dagbani” is the spelling used in the Eastern dialect (Nayahali), while “Dagbanli” is the Western form. The Dagbani Orthography Committee decided that Dagbani refers to the language as a whole, and Dagbanli to the life and culture