Ewondo language
| Ewondo | |
|---|---|
| Kolo | |
| Region | Cameroon |
Native speakers | (580,000 cited 1982)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 |
ewo |
| ISO 639-3 |
ewo |
| Glottolog |
ewon1239[2] |
A.72[3] | |
Ewondo or Kolo is the language of the Ewondo people (more precisely Beti be Kolo or simply Kolo-Beti) of Cameroon. The language had 577,700 native speakers in 1982. Ewondo is a trade language. Dialects include Badjia (Bakjo), Bafeuk, Bamvele (Mvele, Yezum, Yesoum), Bane, Beti, Enoah, Evouzok, Fong, Mbida-Bani, Mvete, Mvog-Niengue, Omvang, Yabekolo (Yebekolo), Yabeka, and Yabekanga. Ewondo speakers live primarily in Cameroon's Centre Region and the northern part of the Océan division in the South Region.
Ewondo is a Bantu language. It is a dialect of the Beti language (Yaunde-Fang), and is intelligible with Bulu, Eton, and Fang.
In 2011 there was a concern among Cameroonian linguists that the language was being displaced in the country by French.[4]
Alphabet
| Uppercase | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | D | Dz | E | Ə | Ɛ | F | G | Gb | H | I | K | Kp | L | M | Mb | Mgb | Mv | N | Nd | Ndz | Ng | Ny | Ŋ | O | Ɔ | P | R | U | T | S | V | W | Y | Z |
| Lowercase | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | d | dz | e | ə | ɛ | f | g | gb | h | i | k | kp | l | m | mb | mgb | mv | n | nd | ndz | ng | ny | ŋ | o | ɔ | p | r | u | t | s | v | w | y | z |
| Phoneme | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | d | dz | e | ə | ɛ | f | ɡ | ɡb | h | i | k | kp | l | m | mb | mɡb | ɱv | n | nd | ndz | nɡ | ɲ | ŋ | o | ɔ | p | r | u | t | s | v | w | j | z |
The tones are indicated with diacritics on the vowels:
- the high tone is indicated with an acute accent: á é ə́ ɛ́ í ó ɔ́ ú;
- the average tone is indicated with a macron: ā ē ə̄ ɛ̄ ī ō ɔ̄ ū;
- the low tone, the most frequent tone, is indicated by the absence of diacritics: a e ə ɛ i o ɔ u;
- the rising tone is indicated with a caron: ǎ ě ə̌ ɛ̌ ǐ ǒ ɔ̌ ǔ;
- the falling tone is indicated with a circumflex: â ê ə̂ ɛ̂ î ô ɔ̂ û.
See also
References
- ↑ Ewondo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Ewondo". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ↑ http://quotidien.mutations-multimedia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2962:patrimoine-la-langue-ewondo-a-son-dictionnaire&catid=58:news&Itemid=415
External links
 |
Ewondo language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
