This will be very useful to whoever is doing language. I emailed Professor Hill to confirm that the Bambara are also known as Bamana, which seems to be correct. I would start by looking at page 12 of this.
This is the section of the text Professor Hill sent to me:
"Bambara is probably the most widespread, dominant language in West Africa. It is the principal language of Mali and is a second language for many. An estimate of the number of speakers is 1.5 million (Platiel 1978). Those who understand some Bambara are between four and five million. Bambara speakers call themselves banmana, and their language bamanakan. The general region of Bambara (see figure 4.3) is from Djenne, to Segou, to Bamako (the acknowledged center of the language); north to Kaarta region (150 kilometers east of Bafoulabe). There is also a Bambara dialect in eastern Senegal. There is also a "trade" version of Bambara, having a similar role in Mali as Dyula has in Ivory Coast. There is a "standard" version of Bambara, which Radio Mali uses, as well as established primers, orthography, newspapers, adult literacy, lexiques, dictionaries, and many guides for Bambara instruction. There is a Bible (1961), and much technical work has been carried out, notably by Charles Bird and also by Maurice Houis."
