Jola (Joola) or Diola is a dialect continuum spoken in Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. It belongs to the Bak branch of the Niger–Congo language family.

The name Jola is an exonym, and may be from the Mandinka word joolaa 'one who pays back'.^[1] There is no widespread endonym used by all of the Jola speakers.

The primary branches of Jola proper and to some extent Central Jola are not mutually intelligible. The main varieties are:

• Bayot
• Jola proper
  • Kwatay (Kuwaataay), spoken along the coast south of the Casamance River.
  • Karon–Mlomp
    • Karon, spoken along the coast of Casamance south of Diouloulou.
    • Mlomp
  • Central Jola
    • Jola-Fonyi (Kujamatay), spoken around Bignona. The official standard.
    • Bandial, spoken in a small area south of the Casamance River.
    • Gusilay, spoken in the village of Thionck Essyl.
    • Jola-Felupe (Ediamat), spoken in a handful of villages south of Oussouye in Oussouye Department. Kerak may be a dialect.
    • (Jola) Kasa, spoken around Oussouye.

Bayot, spoken around Ziguinchor, is grammatically Jola, apart from a non-Jola pronominal system. However, perhaps half its vocabulary is non-Jola and even non-Atlantic. It may therefore be a language isolate with substantial Jola borrowing (relexification). In any case, Bayot is clearly distinct from (other) Jola languages.

Some Proto-Joola reconstructions of stable lexical roots by Segerer (2016) are:^[2]

• Kujamaat Jóola Folklore and Language materials