Logba language
Logba | |
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Ikpana | |
Native to | Ghana |
Region | Volta Region, north-west of Ho |
Ethnicity | Logba people |
Native speakers | 7,500 (2003)[1] |
?
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | lgq |
Glottolog | logb1245 |
ELP | Logba |
Logba | |
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People | Akpanawò |
Language | Ikpana |
Logba is a
Classification
The first published treatment of Logba was a short grammar by Diedrich Hermann Westermann (1903). Westermann included Logba in his group of Togo Restsprachen (Togo Remnant languages), a terminology adopted by several subsequent researchers[1]. Dakubu and Ford (1988) renamed this cluster the Central Togo languages but since Ring (1995) they are commonly referred to as Ghana–Togo Mountain languages. The dozen or so Ghana–Togo Mountain languages are part of the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo family.
Geography and demography
The Logba people live in the
The dominant language in the region is
It is generally agreed that the Logba people are not the original inhabitants of the area they now reside in. There have been two hypotheses as to the origin of the Logba people. Heine (1968, following Debrunner), proposed that the Logba are descendants from the makɔ́ people, having fled south after a defeat in the second half of the 18th century.
Phonology
Logba has a nine
. | Front | Central | Back |
---|---|---|---|
Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
Open | a |
. | Front | Central | Back |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open | a |
Logba is a
All syllables are open in Logba. Every syllable bears a tone. The basic syllable structure can be rendered as (C1)(C2)V+T, where C = consonant, V = vowel or syllabic nasal, and T = tone. Dorvlo (2004) distinguishes three types of syllables:
- syllabic nasal. This type is found only in pronouns and nominal prefixes. Examples: ɛ́-mɔ́ 'they laughed'; ɔ́-zɔ́ 'he/she went'; n-dà 'liquor'.
- Onset and nucleus. This is the most common syllabe type in Logba; most words are of this form. In multisyllabic words, it can occur in all positions. Examples: bà ‘come’; gbà[2]‘sweep’; bìsí ‘cola nut’
- Complex onset and nucleus. Only /r/ and /l/ occur as the second consonant of the complex onset. This syllable type can also form a word by itself. In multisyllabic words, in can occur in all positions. Examples: à-klɔ́ ‘goat’; trò ‘refuse’; ìvàflí ‘(thing) white’.
Consonants
The consonants of Logba are as follows:[2]
Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Labio- Velar |
Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | t
|
ɖ | k | kp | |||
voiced | b | d
|
g | gb | ||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | x | ɦ | |||
voiced | v | z | ||||||
Affricate | voiceless | ts | ||||||
voiced | dz | |||||||
Nasal | m | n
|
||||||
Approximant | l
|
j | w |
s, z, ts, and dz are palatalized to ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, and dʒ respectively, when they occur before i. In the Tota dialect, t and d are pronounced as ts and dz before u.
Tone
Logba is a tonal language with two tones, high and low. There are a few words which have rising tone, all of which are either loanwords such as zenklǎ (pot stand), a loan from Ewe, or are ideophonic, such as tǒ (to fell palm trees), which imitates the sound of a palm tree falling. Monosyllabic verbs which have a low tone in their uninflected form gain high tone when inflected.
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ See for example Heine (1968). Dorvlo (2005) indicates that Logba people who understand the meaning of the term feel uncomfortable with this terminology.
- ^ Heine (1968:30fn8) is aware of the oral history of the Logba but dismisses this account, professedly because Westermann did not write anything about it. See also Gbe languages#History.
- ^ /gb/ is not a sequence of /g/ and /b/; it is a digraph for the labio-velar stop, a double articulation common in many African languages.
References
- ^ Logba at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Dorvlo, Kofi. 2008. A Grammar of Logba (Ikpana). 183. Utrecht: LOT. (Doctoral dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden; xxii+419pp.)
- Blench, Roger (2001). Comparative Central Togo: What have we learnt since Heine? (paper presented at the 32nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics and subsequently revised), 39p.
- Kropp Dakubu, M.E. & K.C. Ford (1988) 'The Central Togo Languages'. In: The Languages of Ghana, M.E. Kropp Dakubu (ed.), 119–153. London: Kegan Paul International.
- Dorvlo, Kofi (2004). ‘A Preliminary Phonology of Logba’, in Kropp Dakubu & Osam (eds.) Studies in the Languages of the Volta Basin II (Proceedings of the annual colloquium of the Legon-Trondheim Linguistics Project 12–13 January 2004). Legon: University of Ghana, pp. 239–249.
- Dorvlo, Kofi (2008), A Grammar of Logba (Ikpana), Dissertation, University of Leiden
- Greenberg 1966 as cited in Dorvlo 2004
- Heine, Bernd (1968) Die Verbreitung und Gliederung der Togorestsprachen (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik vol. 1). Köln: Druckerei Wienand. [pp. 29–30, 100–101]
- Ladefoged, Peter (1964) A Phonetic Study of West African Languages (an auditory-instrumental survey). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [pp. 54]
- Plehn, Rudolf. 1899. 'Beiträge zur Völkerkunde des Togo-Gebietes', in Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen, 2, part III, 87—124.
- Westermann, Diedrich Hermann (1903) ‘Die Logbasprache in Togo. Kurzer Abriss der Grammatik und Texte’, Zeitschrift fur afrikanische, ozeanische und ostasiatische Sprachen, 7, 1, 23–39.
External links
- The Southern Ghana-Togo Mountain Groups: A description of their languages and cultural heritage. (CNWSresearch project).
- Image:Logbakitchen.JPG Picture of a family kitchen in Logba
- Image:Lobgaschool.JPG Picture of Logba School
- Image:Logbavillage.JPG Picture of Logba Village
- ELAR archive of Ikpána (Logba) language documentation materials
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Potou–Tano |
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