Ebrié, or Cama (Caman, Kyama, Tchaman, Tsama, Tyama), is spoken by the

Tchaman The Tchaman or Ébrié are an Akan people living in the Abidjan region of Côte d'Ivoire. Originally called the "Tchaman/Kyama/Gyama" or "Achan" (both of which mean "the chosen ones" in the Ebrié language), the name Ébrié was given to them by ...

people in Ivory Coast and

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 ...

. It is a Potou language of the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo family of languages.

Phonology

Phonemic Inventory

The sounds and are marginal and occur only in loanwords. There are no nasal consonant

phonemes In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

in Ebrié. Instead, the nasal vowels cause the voiced lenis consonant series �, ɗ, j, wto assimilate into , n, ɲ, ŋʷ

Tones

Ebrié has two level tones (H and L) and a falling tone (HL). It also has floating tones, and the voiced fortis consonants have a tendency to lower the pitch of the low tone.

Morphology

Nominal Prefixes

The

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...

prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particu ...

in Ebrié distinguish between certain

homophones A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...

and between singular and

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

forms. Originally, this system would have been more robust, as seen in other Niger-Congo languages. The four nominal prefixes are ''á-, à-, ɛ̃́-'', and ''ɛ̃̀''-. The latter two, which are nasal vowels, can also be realized as syllabic nasals, transcribed as ''ɴ́''- and ''ɴ̀''- but written orthographically as . The second noun in a compound retains its prefix, as shown below. * cámã́ 'the Ebriés' + ńcã̀ 'language' → cámã́ǹcã̀ 'Ebrié language' * átɛ̃̀ 'fire' + ńtʰù 'sand' → ńtɛ̃̀ǹtʰù 'ash'

Plural Nouns

Nouns can be made plural through the use of nominal prefixes or plural suffixes. Certain nouns are irregular or invariable. When a singular noun begins with the prefix á- or à-, its plural form will have the prefix ń- or ǹ- respectively. If a singular noun lacks a prefix, it will often have the prefix ń- in the plural. Other nouns take one of the plural suffixes -má̃, -hɔ̃̀, or -má̃hɔ̀̃. * áyá /ájá/ 'tree' → ńyá /ńjá/ 'trees' * agban /àg͡bã́/ 'plate' → ngbán /ǹg͡bã́/ 'plates * lalabhô àlàɓô'duck' → ńlalabho �làlàɓô'ducks' * mmanhɔn ̀mã̀hɔ̀̃'mothers' * nmyahɔn �mjã̂hɔ̃̀'spouses'

Subject Pronouns

In Ebrié, tense/aspect/mood markers are found on the

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

or as separate

morphemes A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone a ...

if the subject is a

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

or a plural subject pronoun. The singular subject pronouns merge with the TAM markers, resulting in

morphophonemic Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes (mi ...

changes. For exampleː

mɛ̃̀ (1SG) + ɓâ (FUT) → mã̀ã́ (1SG.FUT)

Syntax

Ebrié is a SVO language, as seen in the following example.

jàjó étʰà kpã́hɔ̃̀ Yayo chew.PROG bread 'Yayo eats bread.'

Orthography

The high tone is marked with the acute accent (''ájí'' 'respect'), and the low tone is left unmarked (''aji'' 'clay'). The falling tone is marked with a circumflex (â). The apostrophe (') is used to mark the habitual form of the verb.

References

Potou–Tano languages Languages of Ivory Coast {{kwa-lang-stub