Introduction

The Bulsa, formerly almost purely a farming people, live in the Upper East Region of Northern Ghana. Their number is estimated at around 100,000, with a large proportion of them residing in Southern Ghana or abroad.

In Northern Ghana, they live in 15 villages/towns, which - apart from Kunkwa and Kategra in the Northern Region and Biuk in the Kasena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region - all belonged to the Bulsa District until 2012. The chief of Sandema (Sandemnaab), as Paramount Chief, had a certain precedence and also presided over the election of village chiefs. In 2012 the Bulsa District was divided into the Bulsa-North and Bulsa-South Districts, and in the following years several village chiefs were given the title of Paramount Chief.

According to the Bulsa, the division into North and South Bulsa was the result of the immigration of Atuga, a Mamprusi prince, whose sons settled in the villages of Kadema, Sandema, Wiaga and Siniensi and whose descendants are referred to as Atuga-bisa or Northern Bulsa today. This political/ethnic division was the model for the common linguistic classification of the language into Northern and Southern Buli. In addition, there is the Chuchuliga/Biuk dialect which G. Akanlig-Pare, a lecturer at Legon University (and a native of Wiaga), calls the Northern dialect while referring to the former Northern dialect as Central Buli. The Chuchulia/Biuk dialect was hardly considered in the new dictionary. In 2020 G. Akanlig-Pare noted that the Northern (Chuchulig/Biuk) dialect is more closely related to Southern Buli than to the adjacent Central dialect.

Before the incorporation of what is now Northern Ghana into the British colonial empire, almost all inhabitants of the Bulsa area were followers of a traditional religion, which was mainly based on ancestor worship and the veneration of the earth. The first Catholic mission station was established in Wiaga in 1927. Today, about 47% of the inhabitants in the Bulsa North District and about 37% of those in the South District belong to various Christian denominations (source: Population and Housing Census 2010). The proportion of Muslims which, since the late 19th century has been represented almost exclusively by the foreign ethnic group of the Kantussi (Yarisa), has grown strongly in recent times (North: approx. 13%, South: approx. 5%). .

After a Catholic mission school was founded in Wiaga in 1930, the first Bulsa Native Authority Primary School was established in Sandema in 1936. Later, numerous middle schools/junior secondary schools (today: junior high schools) and (senior) secondary schools (today: senior high schools) were established. Therefore, the literacy rate has risen sharply in recent years. In the Bulsa North District, according to the 2010 Census, about 50% were literate of which 67% were literate in English only. The corresponding numbers for Bulsa-South were 36% and 75% respectively.

In 1973 about 12 male Bulsa had university degrees. Today, the number of university graduates or students has grown to uncountable proportions. By way of example, in a (small) sample of the Facebook group BMY in 2014, about 70% of the members belonged to the category of academics who speak good English but whose knowledge of Buli often has gaps. In 2021 there were four Bulsa Facebook groups with over 4000 members. Access to the internet was one condition for the large and enthusiastic participation of educated Bulsa. According to my (F.K.) own experience, the number of computer owners among the Bulsa as a whole is still relatively low while almost all English-literate people own a smartphone or tablet. This fact may also justify the creation of our dictionary as a smartphone app.