Mpra, or Mpre, is an extinct language spoken in the village of
Butei () in central
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 Tog ...
, located between the towns of
Techiman
Techiman is a city and is the capital of Techiman Municipal and Bono East Region of Ghana. Techiman is a leading market town in South Ghana. Techiman is one of the two major cities and settlements of Bono East region. Techiman is home to ...
and
Tamale
A tamale, in Spanish tamal, is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tam ...
near the confluence of the
Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...
and
White Volta
The White Volta or Nakambé is the headstream of the Volta River, Ghana's main waterway. The White Volta emerges in northern Burkina Faso, flows through North Ghana and empties into Lake Volta in Ghana. The White Volta's main tributaries are the ...
s. Mpra has been difficult to classify due to its divergent vocabulary. It is known only from a 70-word list given in a 1931 article. Blench (2007) considers it to be a possible
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...
. A poorly attested language spoken in the nearby village of Tuluwe,
Mpur, may also turn out to be yet another language isolate. Both Butie and Tuluwe are located near the village of Mpaha.
Painter (1967) briefly states that " has died" and that the ethnic group ("the Nnyamase-mprɛ") have "become Nnyamase-Gonja"; he appears to regard it as having been a dialect of
Gonja. However, this is based only on the numerals, which are clearly related to Gonja. The rest of the vocabulary is "hard to recognise" (Williamson & Blench, 2000:36). Blench (2010) presents it as a possible
Kwa language; Blench (2012) notes that it "may either be an isolate with
waborrowings or a highly divergent branch of Kwa".
[Roger Blench]
Niger-Congo: an alternative view
/ref>
Bibliography
* Blench, Roger. 2010. "Why is Africa so Linguistically Undiverse?
''Language Isolates in Africa'' workshop, Lyon, December 3–4
* Cardinall, A.W. 1931. "A survival". '' Gold Coast (British colony), Gold Coast Review'', V,1:193-197.
* Painter, Colin. 1967. "The Distribution of Guang in Ghana, and a Statistical Pre-Testing on Twenty-Five Idiolects," ''The Journal of West African Languages'', Vol. 4, No. 1, Cambridge University Press, Ibadan, pp. 25–78.
References
External links
*Blench, Roger (1999)
Recent Field Work in Ghana: Report on Dompo and a note on Mpre
'.
{{Niger-Congo branches
Languages of Ghana
Unclassified languages of Africa
Languages extinct in the 20th century