Kru languages
The Kru languages are a subgroup of the North Volta-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo languages . The approximately 30 Kru languages are spoken by around 2.5 million people in Ivory Coast and southern Liberia . The name Kru is obviously a corruption of the language name Klao , favored by the English crew , as the Kru people used to often work as sailors on European ships.
Position of the Kru within the Volta Congo
Westermann (1927) and Greenberg (1963) counted the Kru languages among the Kwa languages , Bennet and Sterk (1977) relocated them to the North Volta-Congo branch . The alternative discussed is an independent position within the Volta Congo, that is, on a par with North and South Volta Congo; this question has not yet been finally clarified. Marchese (1989) added the three isolated languages Aizi, Kuwaa and Seme to the Krus languages.
Classification of the Kru languages
The Kru languages are divided into an eastern and a western branch and three isolated languages. All Kru languages are listed in the following classification, the classification follows Williamson-Blench 2000.
Classification of the Kru languages
-
Kru
- Ost-Kru
- West-Kru
- Aizi (Tiegba and Abroko ) (8 thousand)
- Kuwaa (13 thousand)
- Seme (Siamou) (35k)
The Kru languages of the two main branches are very similar to each other, the most widely differing is the Seme spoken in Burkina Faso.
Linguistic characteristics
Nominal class systems of the Proto-Niger-Congo are hardly preserved in the Kru, the plural is formed by suffixes and changing the final vowel. There are concordance structures in the noun phrases . The Kru languages make extensive use of verbal extensions, for example to form causatives , benefactives , incoatives and the passive . The personal pronouns differ in some languages feminine and masculine in the 2nd and 3rd person singular, otherwise there is no gender differentiation . The word order is SVO, there are postpositions used. While the genitive attribute and the possessive come before the particular noun , the adjective attribute , demonstrative and numerals are placed after the noun.
literature
- Lynell Marchese: Tense / Aspect and the Development of Auxiliaries in Kru Languages . Ed .: Summer Institute of Linguistics. tape 78 . Dallas (TX) 1986, ISBN 0-88312-097-6 , pp. 301 . ( Full text (PDF file; 3.46 MB) as digital copy)
- Joseph Greenberg: The Languages of Africa. Mouton, The Hague and Indiana University Center, Bloomington 1963.
- Bernd Heine and others (ed.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981.
- Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse (eds.): African Languages. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press 2000.
- John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.): The Niger-Congo Languages: A Classification and Description of Africa's Largest Language Family. University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 1989. Therein: Lynell Marchese: Kru.
- Diedrich Westermann: The western Sudan languages and their relationship to Bantu. Announcements from the seminar for oriental languages. Berlin 1927.
- Patrick Bennett and Jan Sterk: South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification. Studies in African Linguistics. 1977.