Wow thank you so much! I posted that a long time ago, and still have an interest in this language group, despite having yet to learn it. You give me new information and inspiration for it. Thanks again!

Hi London! All of those varieties are Manding. Jula and Bambara are particularly close -- as close as American and British English perhaps. Malinké is slightly further away from the two, but nonetheless widely held by native speakers to be mutually intelligible. In the West, people most typically study Bambara since it is the lingua franca of Mali and also because of the modern-day prestige of the variety in Jula-speaking areas. Malinké-speakers are less likely to regard it as a standard or high-form but they certainly recognize it as closer to a lingua franca variety of Manding when one is outside of Guinea or when speakers of the different varieties interact outside of West Africa. Here's a post discussing the differences between Bambara and Jula (https://www.ankataa.com/blog/2019/4/30/bambara-and-dioula) and you'll find other resources on that site as well.

Another language (or dialect) that I was interested in is Djoula but I forgot to mention it here. Which language may be best to study or to speak with the native speakers in your opinions? Et pour les francophonies ici, quelle langue est le plus bon pour étudier ou le plus bon pour parler avec les autres gens, en vos opinions? Et quelles sont les differences entre ces langues? Pensez vous que ces sont dialects our des langues complétement différent?