Jamsay Dogon is one of theDogon languages spoken inMali, and the only one spoken inBurkina Faso apart from a few villages ofTomo Kan. It is one of the plains languages spoken in Dogon villages outside theBandiagara Escarpment (the cliffs that theDogon ethnic group is usually associated with). It is a major language inKoro, at the south end of the escarpment, and stretches as far north asDouentza. It is notmutually intelligible with other Plains Dogon languages, but is widely known as theprestige variety due to its use as the language of radio broadcasts. Dialects areDomno tegu, Gono tegu, Bama tegu, andGuru tegu; their degree of mutual intelligibility has not been recorded. Domno is the standard dialect, and considered the purest;Guru (Koro) is the dialect of that town.

• /ɡ/ can be realized as a fricative[ɣ] between vowel sounds/aɔ/.
• /fhʔ/ can only occur among loanwords.
• /ʃ/ may occur as an allophone of/s/ when preceding/i/.^[2]

Jamsai gets its name from a common response to a greeting: Jam sai, or "peace only." A typical Jam sai greeting goes like this:

A:Jam now (do you have peace in the morning?)

B:Jam sai (peace only)

A:Kanya now (do your people have peace in the morning?)

B:Jam sai

A:Taardé

The greeting then repeats, with B asking all the same questions of A. "Taardé" is the way of the question asker telling the askee that he's done with his inquiry.

A few other common phrases and words:

• E nam sayoba? (Do your people have peace?)
• Guinea nissama? (Did you sleep well?)
• Nya nyé (Eat!)
• Ejuko (Good)
• Ejila (Bad)
• ni inim (Bathe—literally to put water on oneself)
• Ewé (market)
• Yayerrem (I will be right back—literally "I am coming there")
• miten (friend. Can also mean boyfriend/girlfriend)

• Heath, Jeffrey (unpublished)Jamsay GrammarArchived 2016-03-04 at theWayback Machine. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Blench, Roger (2005)."A survey of Dogon languages in Mali: Overview".OGMIOS: Newsletter of Foundation for Endangered Languages.3.02 (26):14–15. Retrieved2011-06-30..
• Hochstetler, J. Lee; Durieux, J.A.; E.I.K. Durieux-Boon (2004).Sociolinguistic Survey of the Dogon Language Area(PDF). SIL International. Retrieved2011-06-30.

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