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Popo Language
Gen (also called Gɛ̃, Gɛn gbe, Gebe, Guin, Mina, Mina-Gen, and Popo) is a Gbe language spoken in the southeast of Togo in the Maritime Region. Like the other Gbe languages, Gen is a tonal language. History The Gen-Mina originated from Accra and Elmina in Ghana. The Mina from Elmina migrated because of the Denkyira wars of aggression, while the Gen came over from Accra after their defeat in the Akwamu wars. The two groups intermingled with the indigenous Ewe, resulting in their Ewe dialect having words borrowed from Fanti, Ga-Adangbe and various European languages. The Gen language is mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ... with Ewe and is considered to be one of the many dialects of Ewe. There were 200,000 Gen-speakers in Togo in 1991, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital, Lomé, is located. It covers about with a population of approximately 8 million, and has a width of less than between Ghana and its eastern neighbor Benin. From the 11th to the 16th century, tribes entered the region from various directions. From the 16th century to the 18th century, the coastal region was a trading center for Europeans to purchase slaves, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast". In 1884, Germany declared a region including a protectorate called Togoland. After World War I, rule over Togo was transferred to France. Togo gained its independence from France in 1960. In 1967, Gnassingbé Eyadéma led a successful military coup d'état, after which he became president of an anti-communist, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benin
Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its population lives on the southern coastline of the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital is Porto-Novo, and the seat of government is in Cotonou, the most populous city and economic capital. Benin covers an area of and its population in was estimated to be approximately million. It is a tropical nation, dependent on agriculture, and is an exporter of palm oil and cotton. Some employment and income arise from subsistence farming. The official language of Benin is French, with indigenous languages such as Fon, Bariba, Yoruba and Dendi also spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Sunni Islam (27 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic–Congo Languages
The Atlantic–Congo languages are the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from Mande, Dogon, Ijoid, Siamou, Kru, the Katla and Rashad languages (previously classified as Kordofanian), and perhaps some or all of the Ubangian languages. Mukarovsky's West-Nigritic corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo. In the infobox, the languages which appear to be the most divergent are placed at the top.Roger BlenchNiger-Congo: an alternative view/ref> The Atlantic branch is defined in the narrow sense, while the former Atlantic branches Mel and the isolates Sua, Gola and Limba, are split out as primary branches; they are mentioned next to each other because there is no published evidence to move them; Volta–Congo is intact apart from Senufo and Kru. In addition, Güldemann (2018) lists Nalu and Rio Nunez as unclassi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwa Languages
The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo. The name was introduced 1895 by Gottlob Krause and derives from the word for 'people' (''Kwa'') in many of these languages, as illustrated by Akan names. Languages See the box at right for a current classification. The various clusters of languages included in Kwa are at best distantly related, and it has not been demonstrated that they are closer to each other than to neighboring Niger–Congo languages. Stewart distinguished the following major branches, which historical-comparative analysis supports as valid groups: * Potou–Tano (including Akan) * Ga–Dangme * Na-Togo * ormerly Gbe (inclusion doubtful, as they show more features of Kwa the closer one moves to Akan) The Lagoon languages of southern Ivory Coast are not particularly close to any of these, nor to each other, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gbe Languages
The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe (10.3 million speakers in Ghana and Togo), followed by Fon (5 million, mainly in Benin). The Gbe languages were traditionally placed in the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo languages, but more recently have been classified as Volta–Niger languages. They include five major dialect clusters: Ewe, Fon, Aja, Gen (Mina), and Phla–Pherá. Most of the Gbe peoples came from the east to their present dwelling-places in several migrations between the tenth and the fifteenth century. Some of the Phla–Pherá peoples however are thought to be the original inhabitants of the area who have intermingled with the Gbe immigrants, and the Gen people probably originate from the Ga-Adangbe people in Ghana. In the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maritime Region
Maritime is the southernmost of Togo's five regions, with the country's only shoreline on the Bight of Benin. Tsévié serves as the regional capital. It is the smallest region in terms of area, but it has the largest population. Other major cities in the Maritime region include Lomé, the Capital of Togo, and Aného. Maritime is located south of Plateaux Region. In the west, it borders the Volta Region of Ghana, and in the east it borders two departments of Benin: Kouffo farther north, and Mono farther south. Prefectures Maritime is divided into the prefectures of Avé, Bas-Mono, Golfe, Lacs, Vo, Yoto, and Zio. References Maritime Region Maritime is the southernmost of Togo's five regions, with the country's only shoreline on the Bight of Benin. Tsévié serves as the regional capital. It is the smallest region in terms of area, but it has the largest population. Other major c ... {{Togo-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonal Language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with ''phoneme''. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. Tonal languages are different from pitch-accent languages in that tonal languages can have each syllable with an independent tone whilst pitch-accent languages may have one syllable in a word or morpheme that is more prominent than the others. Mechanics Most languages use pitch as intonation to convey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ewe People
The Ewe people (; ee, Eʋeawó, lit. "Ewe people"; or ''Mono Kple Volta Tɔ́sisiwo Dome'', lit. "Ewe nation","Eʋenyigba" Eweland;) are a Gbe-speaking ethnic group. The largest population of Ewe people is in Ghana (6.0 million), and the second largest population is in Togo (3.1 million). They speak the Ewe language ( ee, Eʋegbe) which belongs to the Gbe family of languages. They are related to other speakers of Gbe languages such as the Fon people, Fon, Gen language, Gen, Phla Phera, Gun, Maxi, and the Aja people of Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria. Demographics Ewe people are located primarily in the coastal regions of West Africa: in the region south and east of the Volta River to around the Mono River at the border of Togo and Benin; and in the southwestern part of Nigeria (close to the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from the Nigeria and Benin border to Epe). They are primarily found in the Volta Region in southeastern Ghana, southern Togo, in the southwestern part of Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fante Language
Fante (), also known as Fanti, Fantse, or Mfantse, is one of the three principal members of the Akan dialect continuum, along with Asante and Akuapem, the latter two collectively known as Twi, with which it is mutually intelligible. It is principally spoken in the central and southern regions of Ghana as well as in settlements in other regions in western Ghana, Ivory Coast, as well as in Liberia, Gambia and Angola. Fante is the common dialect of the Fante people, whose communities each have their own subdialects, such as Agona, Anomabo, Abura, and Gomoa, all of which are mutually intelligible. Schacter and Fromkin describe two main Fante dialect groups: Fante 1, which uses a syllable-final /w/ and thus distinguishes ''kaw'' ("dance") and ''ka'' ("bite"); and Fante 2, where these words are homophonous. A standardized form of Fante is taught in primary and secondary schools. Many Fantes are bilingual or bidialectal and most can speak Twi. Notable speakers include Cardinal Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ga Language
Ga is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. There are also some speakers in Togo, Benin and Western Nigeria. It has a phonemic distinction between three vowel lengths. Classification Ga is a Kwa language, part of the Niger–Congo family. It is very closely related to Adangme, and together they form the Ga–Dangme branch within Kwa. Ga is the predominant language of the Ga people, an ethnic group of Ghana. Ethnic Ga family names (surnames) include Owoo, Lartey, Nortey, Aryee, Poku, Lamptey, Tetteh, Ankrah, Tetteyfio, Laryea, Ayitey, Okine, Bortey, Quarshie, Quaye, Quaynor, Ashong, Kotei, Clottey, Nai, Sowah, Odoi, Maale, Ako, Adjetey, Annang, Addo, Yemoh, Abbey and Adjei. Geographic distribution Ga is spoken in south-eastern Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. It has relatively little dialectal variation. Although English is the official language of Ghana, Ga is one of 16 languages in which the ''Bureau of Ghana Languages'' publishes mater ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish, have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are eight groups with languages still alive today: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic; and another nine subdivisions that are now extinct. Today, the individual Indo-European languages with the most native speakers are English, Hindi–Urdu, Spanish, Bengali, French, Russian, Portuguese, German, and Punjabi, each with over 100 million native speakers; many others are small and in danger of extinction. In total, 46% of the world's population (3.2 billion people) speaks an Indo-Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
