Ewe language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ewe Eʋegbe
Spoken in:	Ghana, Togo
Region:	Southeast corner of Ghana, southern Togo
Total speakers:	2.5 million, 3 million including second language speakers
Language family:	Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Kwa Left Bank Gbe Ewe
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	`ee`
ISO 639-2:	`ewe`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`ewe`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Ewe (Eʋegbe in Ewe orthography) is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana and Togo by approximately three million people (Capo 1991). Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, stretching from eastern Ghana to Western Nigeria. Other Gbe languages include Fon and Aja. Like other Gbe languages, Ewe is a tonal language.

The German Africanist Diedrich Hermann Westermann published many dictionaries and grammars of Ewe and several other Gbe languages. Other linguists that have worked on Ewe include Gilbert Ansre (tone, syntax), Hounkpati B. Capo (phonology, phonetics), Herbert Stahlke (morphology, tone), Roberto Pazzi (anthropology, lexicography), Felix K. Ameka (semantics, cognitive linguistics) and Alan Stewart Duthie (semantics, phonetics).

1 Sounds
- 1.1 Consonants
- 1.2 Vowels
2 Writing system
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonants

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar				Velar		Labial-velar		Glottal
Plosive	p	b			t	d	ɖ		k	ɡ	k͡p	ɡ͡b
Affricate					ʦ	ʣ
Nasal		m				n		ɲ		ŋ
Fricative	ɸ	β	f	v	s	z			x	ɣ			h
Approximant						l		j				w

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i, ĩ	u, ũ
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ, ɛ̃	ɔ, ɔ̃
Open	a, ã

[edit] Writing system

Ewe is written in the African reference alphabet, the Latin alphabet, with some extra letters, some of which are derived from the International Phonetic Alphabet, added to represent certain sounds.

A a	B b	D d	Ɖ ɖ	Dz dz	E e	Ɛ ɛ	F f	Ƒ ƒ	G g	Gb gb	Ɣ ɣ
/a/	/b/	/d/	/ɖ/	/ʣ/	/e/	/ɛ/	/f/	/ɸ/	/ɡ/	/ɡ͡b/	/ɣ/
H h	I i	K k	Kp kp	L l	M m	N n	Ny ny	Ŋ ŋ	O o	Ɔ ɔ	P p
/h/	/i/	/k/	/k͡p/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/	/o/	/ɔ/	/p/
R r	S s	T t	Ts ts	U u	V v	Ʋ ʋ	W w	X x	Y y	Z z
/l/	/s/	/t/	/ʦ/	/u/	/v/	/β/	/w/	/x/	/j/	/z/

A tilde (˜) is placed over vowels to mark nasalization. Tone is generally unmarked, except in some common cases which require disambiguation, eg. the first person plural pronoun mí 'we' is marked high to distinguish it from the second person plural mi 'you', and the second person singular pronoun wò 'you' is marked low to distinguish it from the third person plural pronoun wo 'they/them'

ekpɔ wò [ɛ́kp͡ɔ̀ wɔ̀] — 'he saw you'
ekpɔ wo [ɛ́kp͡ɔ̀ wɔ́] — 'he saw them'

[edit] References

Ansre, Gilbert (1961) The Tonal Structure of Ewe. MA Thesis, Kennedy School of Missions of Hartford Seminary Foundation.
Ameka, Felix Kofi (2001) 'Ewe'. In Garry and Rubino (eds.), Fact About the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present, 207-213. New York/Dublin: The H.W. Wilson Company.
Capo, Hounkpati B.C. (1991) A Comparative Phonology of Gbe, Publications in African Languages and Linguistics, 14. Berlin/New York: Foris Publications & Garome, Bénin: Labo Gbe (Int).
Pasch, Helma (1995) Kurzgrammatik des Ewe Köln: Köppe.
Westermann, Diedrich Hermann (1930) A Study of the Ewe Language London: Oxford University Press.