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Anii Language
The Anii or Basila language (''Bassila, Baseca,'' also known as ''Oji-Ouji, Ouinji-Ouinji, Winji-Winji,'' though this is derogatory) is spoken in Benin, and central eastern Togo and central eastern Ghana. It is part of the geographic group of Ghana Togo Mountain languages (formerly known as the ''Togorestsprachen'' or Togo Remnant languages) of the Kwa branch of Niger–Congo. There are four major dialect groups in Anii, which are quite different from each other, even to the point that some of the dialects are not mutually intelligible. These differences may include variation in phonology (including tonology), lexicon, syntax, and semantics. There are significant differences from village to village within groups, particularly regarding pronunciation. The name "Anii" was chosen in May 1979 by the Anii people as the official name for the language because it is a word that is common to all the Anii dialects. It is an interjection meaning roughly ‘do you hear?’, or ‘do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bassila
Bassila is a town, arrondissement, and commune located in the Donga Department of Benin. The commune covers an area of 120 square kilometres and as of 2013 had a population of 130,770 people. The RNIE 3 highway of Benin passes through the town of Bassila and the commune. The main ethnic groups in the commune are in the order of significance: Yoruba/Nagot who are the native dwellers, as well as smaller migrant communities of Anii and Tem people otherwise known as 'Kotokoli'. The Nagots historically migrated from Nigeria during a westward Yoruba expansion. The town of Bassila is largely Anii, and is the largest Anii-speaking village. Given that Bassila is located in proximity to the border with Togo, a significant proportion of the population are of Togolese origin (Anii and Kotokoli migrants). Bassila is the second largest arrondissement in Benin by land area. Mont Sokbaro, widely cited as the highest point of Benin, lies in Bassila commune, on the border with Togo. Towns a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
F (letter)
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. History The origin of 'F' is the Semitic letter '' waw'' that represented a sound like or . Graphically it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club. It may have been based on a comparable Egyptian hieroglyph such as that which represented the word ''mace'' (transliterated as ḥ(dj)): T3 The Phoenician form of the letter was adopted into Greek as a vowel, ''upsilon'' (which resembled its descendant ' Y' but was also the ancestor of the Roman letters ' U', ' V', and ' W'); and, with another form, as a consonant, ''digamma'', which indicated the pronunciation , as in Phoenician. Latin 'F,' despite being pronounced differently, is ultimately descended from digamma and closely resembles it in form. After sound changes eliminat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
O (letter)
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plural ''oes''. History Its graphic form has remained fairly constant from Phoenician times until today. The name of the Phoenician letter was '' ʿeyn'', meaning "eye", and indeed its shape originates simply as a drawing of a human eye (possibly inspired by the corresponding Egyptian hieroglyph, cf. Proto-Sinaitic script). Its original sound value was that of a consonant, probably , the sound represented by the cognate Arabic letter ع ''ʿayn''. The use of this Phoenician letter for a vowel sound is due to the early Greek alphabets, which adopted the letter as O "omicron" to represent the vowel . The letter was adopted with this value in the Old Italic alphabets, including the early Latin alphabet. In Greek, a variation of the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Latin-script Digraphs
This is a list of digraphs used in various Latin alphabets. Capitalisation involves only the first letter (''ch'' becomes ''Ch'') unless otherwise stated (''ij'' becomes ''IJ''). Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order according to their base: is alphabetised with , not at the end of the alphabet, as it would be in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Substantially-modified letters, such as (a variant of ) and (based on ), are placed at the end. Apostrophe (capital ) is used in Bari for . (capital ) is used in Bari for . is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for when it appears in a dark or ''yin'' tone. It is also often written as . is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for dark is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for dark is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for dark (capital ) is used in Bari and Hausa (in Nigeria) for , but in Niger, Hausa is replaced with . A is used in Taa, where it represents the glottalized or cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ny (digraph)
Ny is a digraph in a number of languages such as Catalan, Ganda, Filipino/Tagalog, Hungarian, Swahili and Malay. In most of these languages, including all of the ones named above, it denotes the palatal nasal (). To represent the palatal nasal in other languages, the letter nj is used, such as in Albanian and the countries using Gaj's Latin alphabet and the countries that make up the former Yugoslavia. It has had widespread use for languages of West Africa, though in some countries, the IPA letter '' ɲ'' is now used. It is sometimes used in modern Spanish where ''ñ'' cannot be used, such as in earlier computer programming or Internet domain names. FAQ about .es domain names: . ''N'' and ''ny'' are mentioned as substitutes for ''ñ''. Aragonese The writing of the palatal nasal in Aragonese has been a matter of debate since the first orthographic codification of the language (''grafía de Uesca'') in 1987 by the '' Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa'' at a convention in Huesc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
N (letter)
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ..., was used in Egyptian language, Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English , because the Egyptian word for "snake" was ''djet''. It is speculated by many that Semitic people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for "snake" may have begun with that sound. However, the name for the letter in the Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician, Hebr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M (letter)
M, or m, is the thirteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''em'' (pronounced ), plural ''ems''. History The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a " Proto-Sinaitic" (Bronze Age) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing. The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value , from the Egyptian word for "water", ''nt''; the adoption as the Semitic letter for was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", '' *mā(y)-''. Use in writing systems The letter represents the bilabial nasal consonant sound in the orthography of Latin as well as in that of many modern languages, and also in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In English, the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that is sometimes a vowel, in words like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L (letter)
L, or l, is the twelfth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''el'' (pronounced ), plural ''els''. History Lamedh may have come from a pictogram of an ox goad or cattle prod. Some have suggested a shepherd's staff. Use in writing systems Phonetic and phonemic transcription In phonetic and phonemic transcription, the International Phonetic Alphabet uses to represent the lateral alveolar approximant. English In English orthography, usually represents the phoneme , which can have several sound values, depending on the speaker's accent, and whether it occurs before or after a vowel. The alveolar lateral approximant (the sound represented in IPA by lowercase ) occurs before a vowel, as in ''lip'' or ''blend'', while the velarized alveolar lateral approximant (IPA ) occurs in ''bell'' and ''milk''. This velarization does not occur in many European lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kp (digraph)
This is a list of digraphs used in various Latin alphabets. Capitalisation involves only the first letter (''ch'' becomes ''Ch'') unless otherwise stated (''ij'' becomes ''IJ''). Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order according to their base: is alphabetised with , not at the end of the alphabet, as it would be in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Substantially-modified letters, such as (a variant of ) and (based on ), are placed at the end. Apostrophe (capital ) is used in Bari for . (capital ) is used in Bari for . is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for when it appears in a dark or ''yin'' tone. It is also often written as . is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for dark is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for dark is used in the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for dark (capital ) is used in Bari and Hausa (in Nigeria) for , but in Niger, Hausa is replaced with . A is used in Taa, where it represents the glottalized or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
K (letter)
K, or k, is the eleventh letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''kay'' (pronounced ), plural ''kays''. The letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive. History The letter K comes from the Greek letter Κ ( kappa), which was taken from the Semitic kaph, the symbol for an open hand. This, in turn, was likely adapted by Semitic tribes who had lived in Egypt from the hieroglyph for "hand" representing /ḏ/ in the Egyptian word for hand, ⟨ ḏ-r-t⟩ (likely pronounced in Old Egyptian). The Semites evidently assigned it the sound value instead, because their word for hand started with that sound. K was brought into the Latin alphabet with the name ''ka'' /kaː/ to differentiate it from C, named ''ce'' (pronounced /keː/) and Q, named ''qu'' and pronounced /kuː/. In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters C, K and Q were all used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J (letter)
J, or j, is the tenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is ''jay'' (pronounced ), with a now-uncommon variant ''jy'' ."J", ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989) When used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the ''y'' sound, it may be called ''yod'' or ''jod'' (pronounced or ). History The letter ''J'' used to be used as the swash letter ''I'', used for the letter I at the end of Roman numerals when following another I, as in XXIIJ or xxiij instead of XXIII or xxiii for the Roman numeral twenty-three. A distinctive usage emerged in Middle High German. Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his ''Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana'' ("Trissino's epistle about the letters recently added in the It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I (letter)
I, or i, is the ninth letter and the third vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''i'' (pronounced ), plural '' ies''. History In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative () in Egyptian, but was reassigned to (as in English "yes") by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound. This letter could also be used to represent , the close front unrounded vowel, mainly in foreign words. The Greeks adopted a form of this Phoenician ''yodh'' as their letter ''iota'' () to represent , the same as in the Old Italic alphabet. In Latin (as in Modern Greek), it was also used to represent and this use persists in the languages that descended from Latin. The modern letter ' j' originated as a variation of 'i', and both were used interchangeably fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
