- Also spoken in
- Ghana, Togo
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
A language-classification database lists Ewe as spoken in Ghana and Togo, and gives its endangerment status as not endangered.
Sources
- Glottolog 5.3 — "Ewe" (ewee1241), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology — Countries and endangerment status (AES)
Script & pronunciation
Unicode's locale data for Ewe lists its main letters as the Latin letters together with ɖ, ƒ, ŋ, ɛ, ɔ, ɣ and ʋ, and with vowels marked with accents and tildes. This app's cards use these letters, as in the card for "Big", Gã, whose note says that ã is a nasal vowel. The app's Ewe cards have no separate romanization.
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) codes Ewe as having a simple tone system, which it defines as essentially one with only a two-way basic contrast, usually between high and low levels.
Sources
- Unicode CLDR v45 — Locale summary chart for Ewe (ee) — Main exemplar characters
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 13A, "Tone" (Maddieson, Ian), Ewe datapoint — Value: Simple tone system
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Chapter 13, "Tone" (Maddieson, Ian) — Definition of a simple tone system
Grammar essentials
WALS gives Ewe a basic word order of subject-verb-object and codes adjectives as following the noun. In this app, the card for "Big", Gã, says that it follows the noun, as in agbalẽ gã.
WALS codes Ewe negation as obligatory double negation, meaning that two morphemes code the negation at the same time. This app's card for "I don't know", Nyemenya o, shows this pattern: its note says that the negative prefix nye-/me- pairs with the final o, and the note on the card for "I understand", Mese egɔme, says that an affirmative sentence takes no final o.
Sources
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 81A, "Order of Subject, Object and Verb", Ewe datapoint — Value: SVO
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 87A, "Order of Adjective and Noun", Ewe datapoint — Value: Noun-Adjective
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 143A, "Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb", Ewe datapoint — Value: obligatory double negation
Politeness & etiquette
WALS codes Ewe as having no politeness distinction in its pronouns. The WALS page adds that it is polite to avoid the second person singular, using instead amegã (sir) or aẃeno (mistress).
In this app, the card for "Please / Excuse me", Taflatse, has a note saying that politeness is carried by the word itself, as Ewe has no honorific pronoun, and its usage note says to put it before an imperative to make it polite.
Sources
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 45A, "Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns" (Helmbrecht, Johannes), Ewe datapoint — Value: No politeness distinction; page note on avoiding the 2.sg