Guéré (Gere), also called Wè (Wee), is a
Kru language spoken by over 300,000 people in the
Dix-Huit Montagnes and
Moyen-Cavally regions of
Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...
.
Phonology
The
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
of Guere (here the Zagna dialect of Central Guere / Southern Wè)
is briefly sketched out below.
Consonants
The consonant phonemes are as follows:
Allophones of some of these phonemes include:
* is an allophone of before nasal vowels
* is an allophone of before nasal vowels
* is an allophone of before nasal vowels
* is an allophone of in word-initial position
* is an allophone of after a
coronal consonant
Coronals are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Among places of articulation, only the coronal consonants can be divided into as many articulation types: apical (using the tip of the tongue), laminal (using the ...
(alveolar or palatal)
In addition, while the nasal consonants and contrast with and before oral vowels, and are thus separate phonemes, before nasal vowels only the nasal consonants occur. and do not occur before nasal vowels, suggesting that historically a
phonemic merger between these sounds and the nasals may have occurred in this position.
Vowels
Like many
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
n languages, Guere makes use of a contrast between
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
s with
advanced tongue root and those with
retracted tongue root. In addition,
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
s contrast phonemically with oral vowels.
Tones
Guere is a tonal language and contrasts ten tone (linguistics), tones:
See also
*
Wobe language, Wobe Northern Wè
References
{{Kru languages
Wee languages
Languages of Ivory Coast