Remaining Togo languages
Togo residual languages is an outdated term for a subgroup of the Kwa languages , which form a sub-unit of the Volta-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo languages . According to today's terminology, the so-called remaining Togo languages form two genetic sub-units within the Kwa languages : the Ka-Togo and the Na-Togo . The 14 languages of these two units are spoken by around 300,000 people in eastern Ghana , central Togo and northwestern Benin .
Development of the term
The so-called remaining Togo languages were recognized by Bernhard Struck in 1912 as genealogically related. He called her Semibantu from Middle Togo . Diedrich Westermann replaced this designation in 1922 first with remaining languages in Central Togo , then in 1927 with remaining Togo languages . This term has been replaced in English by Central Togo Languages . Joseph Greenberg (1950, 1963) adopted these languages in his Kwa group; today we speak of Na-Togo and Ka-Togo languages within the Kwa.
Speech characteristics
Like most Niger-Congo languages , the so-called remaining Togo languages also have a nominal class system that has been researched far better than that of neighboring language groups. The remaining Togo languages are - like most other Kwa languages - tone languages and have a distinctive vowel system with vowel harmony . Many were heavily influenced by the dominant languages Ewe and Twi .
classification
Na-Togo and Ka-Togo languages within the Kwa languages
-
Kwa
- Ega
- Potou-Tano
- Ga-Dangme
-
Na-Togo
- Lelemi: Lelemi-Lefana (40 thousand), Siwu (20 thousand); Sekpele (15 thousand), Sele (Santrokofi) (10 thousand)
- Logba: Logba (5 thousand)
- Anii-Adele: Anii (10 thousand), Adele (20 thousand)
- Ka Togo
- Gbe
- Esuma
- Cenka
Only the so-called remaining Togo languages are listed here as individual languages.
See also
literature
Remaining Togo languages
- Ursula Hintze: Bibliography of the Kwa languages and the languages of the remaining Togo peoples. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1959.
- Bernd Heine: The distribution and structure of the Togorest languages. Cologne Contributions to African Studies, Vol. 1. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Cologne 1968.
Kwa languages
- Joseph Greenberg: The Languages of Africa. Mouton, The Hague and Indiana University Center, Bloomington 1963.
- Joseph Greenberg: Studies in African Linguistic Classification. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 1949-50.
- 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: John M. Stewart: Kwa.
- 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.