Robertson speaking Gio

This video was recorded by Peace Corps Volunteer Milea in Liberia and features Daikarkeh Yenglee Robertson. Dan was spoken by 1,300,000 people in Côte d'lvoire as of 2012, with its two main divisions, Eastern and Western Dan, having roughly equivalent speaker populations. Dan belongs to the Tura-Dan-Mano grouping of the Eastern Mande languages within the Niger-Congo language family (although the classification of the Mande languages under Niger-Congo is not without controversy). Dan is spoken primarily in Liberia and Ivory Coast, with around 800 speakers in Guinea. Also known as Yacouba, Yakubasa, Gio, Gyo, Gio-dan, and Da, Dan's two main dialect divisions, Eastern Dan and Western Dan, are known by the autonyms Gweetaawu and Blowo respectively. Like other Mande languages, Dan lacks a noun class system, a feature prevalent throughout other Atlantic-Congo languages. Dan is a tonal language with three main tones and two contour tones, which shift or 'glide' from one pitch to another within a syllable.