The Busa-English, English-Busa dictionary was compiled by the author in Nigeria over a 12 year period while translating the Bible into Busa. It forms a trilogy together with the simultaneously published Boko and Bokobaru dictionaries. This cluster of languages, of which the grammar was published by Lincom Europa in 1998, belongs to the Eastern subdivision of the Mande language family.
The database is root based, so that any word that begins with a lexeme root will appear as a subentry under that lexeme. The 6600 head and subwords are written in bold Busa orthography, followed by phonetic representations, including tones and variants, a part of speech label and glosses in English.
Etymology, synonyms and variants are given as appropriate, with the etymology showing significant historical borrowing from Dendi. Comparison of Busa words with the equivalent words in the Boko and Bokobaru dictionaries illustrates consonant weakening, elision, and significant changes in the tone systems.
ISBN 9783895868375. Languages of the World/Dictionaries 31. 212pp. 2004.