Animere (sometimes ''Anyimere'' or ''Kunda'', the latter being a toponym) is a language spoken in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

, in the Kecheibe and Kunda villages of the ''Benimbere'' people. It is most closely related to Kebu or Akebu of

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 c ...

. Both are

Ghana Togo Mountain languages Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

(GTM), classified as members of the Ka-Togo group by Heine (1968). Like most other GTM languages, Animere is a noun-class language. Animere is an endangered language which is no longer being passed on to children; the speaker count is approximately 30 (Blench 2006).Blench (2006)
notes that all 30 speakers are over 35 years old. A 2003 ''Ethnologue'' estimate of 700 probably counts all ethnic Benimbere. Bodomo 1996:38 states that "Animere (...) is said to be dying out (only 250 speakers now)". Bodomo's figure probably derives from an older edition of the Ethnologue also cited by Sommer 1992. Already in 1965

Adele Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a rec ...

, another GTM language, was the dominant language among the younger generation in the Animere area, and only elderly people spoke Animere among themselves, leading Heine (1968) to expect that 'the language is going to be extinct in a few decades'.Heine (1968) says that only members of Nkwantá and Kontrô clans of the Benimbere speak (some) Animere; cf. Sommer 1992:308 Knowledge of

Twi Twi () is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan people, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17-18 million speakers in total, includ ...

, a dominant regional language, is also widespread among the Benimbere.

Footnotes

References

* Bodomo, Adams B. (1996) 'On Language And Development In Africa: The Case of Ghana', '' Nordic Journal of African Studies'', 5, 2, 31–51. * Heine, Bernd (1968) ''Die Verbreitung und Gliedering der Togorestsprachen'' (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik vol. 1). Köln: Druckerei Wienand. * Seidel, A., (1898) "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Sprachen in Togo." Aufgrund der von Dr. Rudolf Plehn und anderen gesammelten Materialien bearbeitet. Zeitschrift für Afrikanischer und Oceanischer Sprachen. * Sommer, Gabriele (1992) 'A survey on language death in Africa', in Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) ''Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa''. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 301–417.

External links

Animere profile
on UNESCO-CI *ELAR archive o
Documention of Animere, Ghana (Kwa, Niger-Congo): A Pilot Study
Languages of Ghana Ghana–Togo Mountain languages Endangered languages of Africa {{kwa-lang-stub