Kwa languages
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The Kwa languages are spoken in the south-eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire, in Ghana, Togo and Benin, and the south-Western corner of Nigeria. The term was introduced 1885 by Krause and used by Westermann (1952) and Greenberg (1963). According to Westermann (1952), the term Kwa is derived form the word for 'people' in many of these languages, which contains the root kwa.
The term Kwa is sometimes deemed as incorrect today, since present analysis does not consider Kwa in its original form to be a genetic unit. Yoruba and Igbo are placed in the Benue-Congo subfamily and the remaining languages are labeled New Kwa in order to avoid confusion with the old, larger Kwa family.
Kwa languages
The following languages belong to this group:
See also
Sources
- Bennett, Patrick R. & Sterk, Jan P. (1977) 'South Central Niger-Congo: A reclassification'. Studies in African Linguistics, 8, 241–273.
- Hintze, Ursula (1959) Bibliographie der Kwa-Sprachen und der Sprachen der Togo-Restvölker (mit 11 zweifarbigen Sprachenkarten). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
- Stewart, John M. (1989) 'Kwa'. In: Bendor-Samuel & Hartell (eds.) The Niger-Congo languages. Lanham, MD: The University Press of America.
- Westermann, Diedrich Hermann (1952) Languages of West Africa (Handbook of African Languages Part II). London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press.