Kabiye (; also rendered ''Kabiyé'', ''Kabiyè'', ''Kabye'', ''Kabyé'', ''Kabyè'', ''Cabrai'' or ''Cabrais'') is an Eastern Gurunsi Gur language spoken primarily in northern

Togo Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...

. Throughout the 20th century, there was extensive migration to the centre and south of

and also to

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

and

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

. Kabiye speakers made up over 23% of the Togolese population in 1999.

Status

Kabiye is one of two

national language '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

s of

(along with Ewe). In the Togolese context, ''

'' currently means that the language is promoted in national media and, in the formal education sector, as an optional exam subject in grades 9 and 10.

Linguistic research

The missionary-linguist Jacques Delord published the first descriptive grammar of Kabiye in 1976. This was followed by Kezié Lébikaza's descriptive grammar in 1999, which remains the key reference work in Kabiye linguistics. There is also a Kabiye-French

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

. Other topics that have been the focus of research include:

Comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aim ...

Discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative sy ...

Language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

, Lexicology, Morphology,

Phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies unde ...

Syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

, Tone

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

, Tonology, and the

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

system.

Publications

The earliest known publications in Kabiye appeared in the 1930s. Altogether there have been about 200 publications in Kabiye, though not all of these are still in print or easily available for purchase. For an inventory up to the turn of the century see Pouwili, 1999. Publications include two books of proverbs, folktales,

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

, medical booklets, agricultural booklets, translations of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

, political tracts, religious tracts, a short novel, primers, and other pedagogical materials.

Kabiye Wikipedia

The Kabiye Wikipedia was initiated in June 2014 by Gnasse Atinèdi, the secretary of the Académie Kabiye. It currently (July 2017) has 1185 articles on a wide range of international subjects.

Phonology

Consonants

The five voiced consonant sounds only occur either word-medially or as allophones. The retroflex sound can occur as voiced allophones of , , or in medial position.

Vowels

Short vowels

Long vowels

The long back unrounded vowels only occur at

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

boundaries.

Tones

Kabiye is a tonal language, meaning that pitch differences are used to distinguish one word from another. These contrasts may be lexical (e.g. ''ɖálʊ́'' "elder brother" ~ ''ɖálʊ̀'' "intestinal worm") or grammatical (e.g. ''ɛɛkɔŋ́'' "he isn't coming" ~ ''ɛɛ́kɔŋ'' "(when) he comes" ~ ''ɛ́ɛkɔ́ŋ'' "if he doesn't come). There are two tones, high (H) and low (L). Six tone contours are possible on mono- and disyllabic nouns (H, L, HL, LH, HLH, LHL) and three on the imperative form of the

(H, L, HL). Kabiye also has automatic downstep, where a H following a L is always pronounced on a lower pitch than the preceding H within the same phonological phrase. Numerous tonal processes occur once words are placed in context. The contour HLH always surfaces as HꜜHH ~ HHꜜH (depending on the consonant–vowel structure that it associates to). This is a postlexical process that occurs wherever the context permits, within

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

s and across word boundaries. There is lexical L tone spreading in the

verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntax, syntactic unit composed of a verb and its argument (linguistics), arguments except the subject (grammar), subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quic ...

and the associative noun phrase.

Vowel harmony

Kabiye has

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

, meaning that the quality of the

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

in an

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...

is determined by that of the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

. There are two kinds: # ATR

, in which words contain either the − ATR

s (e.g. ''ɛ-ñɩmɩ́-yɛ'' "his key") or the + ATR

s (''e-kalími-yé'' "his chicken"). The vowel is unspecified for ATR and can occur in either set. # Lip rounding

, in which some affixes contains either unrounded

s or rounded

s . This process is much more limited, occurring in some TAM

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

es (e.g. ''è-kpéz-íɣ́'' "he coughs" / ''è-ɖóz-ùù'' "he dreams") and some adjectival

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

es (e.g. ''kɩ́-kpɛ̀d-ʊ̀ʊ́'' "black", ''kʊ́-hʊ̀lʊ̀m-ʊ́ʊ̀'' "white"). Again, the vowel is unspecified for ATR and can occur in either set. A limited number of prefixes undergo both

processes, e.g. the first

person A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

subject pronoun In linguistics, a subject pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used as the subject of a verb. Subject pronouns are usually in the nominative case for languages with a nominative–accusative alignment pattern. On the other hand, a language with ...

: ''pà-kpàzá-à'' "they coughed", ''pɛ̀-wɛ̀ɛ́tà-à'' "they whispered", ''pè-wèlìsàá'' "they listened", ''pɔ̀-cɔ́nà-à'' "they looked", ''pò-ɖòzà-á'' "they dreamt".

Orthography

Kabiye was first written in the 1930s, but it was in the early 1980s that the ''Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè'' (now the ''Académie Kabiyè''), an organ of the Togolese Ministry of Education, standardized the orthography. Kabiye is written in modified Roman script based on the character inventory of the

African reference alphabet The African Reference Alphabet is a largely defunct continent-wide guideline for the creation of Latin alphabets for African languages. Two variants of the initial proposal (one in English and a second in French) were made at a 1978 UNESCO-organi ...

. An alternative

, devised and promoted by R.P. Adjola Raphaël, is widely used among Catholics; it uses the same letters but with different spelling rules. The following tables show the grapheme-phoneme correspondences in the Standard orthography.

Consonants

The

contains a significant amount of overspecification, since the 5

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

obstruent An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...

graphemes ''b'', ''g'', ''gb'', ''v'', ''j'' are superfluous from a strictly phonemic point of view. The

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

is reserved for loanwords.

Vowels

Short vowels

Long vowels

Tones

The standard

of Kabiye does not generally mark tone. The single exception is the spelling of two

s that are tonal minimal pairs:

Punctuation

The

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...

is used in the standard

in order to distinguish

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

s. It appears between the

possessive pronoun A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or le ...

and the

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

in the associative noun phrase, and between the verb root and the

object pronoun In linguistics, an object pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used typically as a grammatical object: the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. Object pronouns contrast with subject pronouns. Object pronouns in En ...

in the

, e.g.: :

Grammar

Kabiye is an SVO language. The

possessive A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...

precedes the head noun.

Adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s, numerals, demonstratives, locatives and

relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phrase and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments in the relative clause refers to the noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence ''I met a man who wasn ...

s follow the head noun.

Noun classes

Kabiye has ten

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...

es. The first eight are grouped in pairs of

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, see List of animal names * Singular (band), a Thai jazz pop duo *'' Singula ...

s and

s that are sometimes referred to as

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

s. Some limited cross-pairing occurs.

Class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

9 contains

uncountable In mathematics, an uncountable set, informally, is an infinite set that contains too many elements to be countable. The uncountability of a set is closely related to its cardinal number: a set is uncountable if its cardinal number is larger tha ...

s (leaves, dust, mosquitos...), while

class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

10 contains liquids (milk, blood, oil...). There are certain other

semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

tendencies (e.g., humans in

es 1 and 2, tools in

es 3 and 4), but these are by no means systematic. The

of any

is identifiable by its

and by the agreement of other potential elements in the sentence with it, such as

pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not con ...

, demonstratives, interrogatives, adjectives, determiners and the numerals one to five. The following table gives an example of a

–

determiner Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examp ...

construction from each

. In each case, the

is separated from the

with a

Verb conjugations

The

is composed of an obligatory

and TAM ( tense– aspect– mood)

. The TAM

may indicate imperative (''hàzɩ̀'' "sweep!"),

aorist Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...

(''ɛ́házɩ̀'' "and he swept"), perfective (''ɛ̀hàzàá'' "he swept"),

imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated , , or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ...

present The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplan ...

(''ɛ̀házɩ̀ɣ̀'' "he is sweeping"),

past The past is the set of all Spacetime#Definitions, events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human ...

(''ɛ̀hàzàɣ́'' "he was sweeping") or

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...

(''hàzʊ́ʊ̀'' "to sweep"). Kabiye is unusual in also having two designated paradigms for expressing

comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

s in a subordinate clause: an

form (''ɛ̀zɩ́ ɛ̀hàzʊ̀ʊ̀ʊ́ yɔ́'' "as he sweeps") and a perfective form (''ɛ̀zɩ́ ɛ̀hàzʊ́ʊ̀ yɔ́'' "as he swept"). The perfective has two forms: unbound (not followed by a complement: ''ɛ̀hàzàá'' "he swept") and bound (followed by a complement: ''ɛ̀hàzá ɖèdè'' "he swept yesterday"). The

may also optionally include modal

es that add nuances of meaning: adversative (''ɛ̀tɩ́ɩ̀hàzɩ̀ɣ́'' "he swept in spite of it"), habitual (''ɛ̀tɩ́ɩ́házɩ̀ɣ̀'' "he usually sweeps"), expectative (''ɛ̀tɩ́ɩ́házɩ́ɣ́'' "he sweeps in the meantime"), immediative (''ɛ̀tɩ̀hàzàá'' "he swept straightaway"), pluperfect (''ɛ̀ɛ̀hàzàá'' "he had swept"),

future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ex ...

(''ɛ̀ɛ́hàzɩ̀ɣ̀ lɛ́'' "when he will sweep") and negative (''ɛ̀tàhàzɩ́'' "he didn't sweep"). Some of these modal

es may also appear in combination with each other so that, for example, negative + adversative indicates a negative categorical meaning (''ɛ̀tàtɩ́ɩ̀hàzɩ́'' "he didn't sweep at all"). The

may optionally add a

(written joined to the

or the modal

as in the examples above) and/or an

(written joined to the

with a

: ''ɛ̀hàzá-kɛ́'' "he swept it"). There is one modal

. It is used in conjunction with a negative modal

to indicate a Provisional meaning. It is written joined to the

(ɛ̀tàhàzɩ̀tá "he has not swept yet"). The

can also be extended by means of the

''-náʊ̀'' to indicate instrumentality, accompaniment, manner, simultaneity or conformity (''ɛ̀hàzɩ́nàà'' "he swept with"). All

s can be nominalised as agentives (''házɩ́yʊ́'' "sweeper"),

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s ("kɪ̀hàzʊ̀ʊ́" "swept") or locatives (''ɖɩ̀hàzɩ̀yɛ́'' "sweeping place").

Sample text

''Man-kabɩyɛ kʊnʊŋ, ŋɖewa pɩfɛyɩ naʊ. Yee pɔyɔɔdʊʊ-ŋ nɛ ɛyʊ welesi yɔ, pɩwɛ-ɩ ɛzɩ wondu peteɣ. Ɛlɛ, yee ɛyʊ ɛwɛɛ nɛ ɛɛmaɣzɩɣ ñɔ-yɔɔ camɩyɛ yɔ, ɛɛnaɣ ñe-ɖeu. Nɔɔyʊ ewelesiɣ pɩŋŋ nɛ ɛnɩɩ pɔyɔɔdʊʊ-ŋ yɔ, pɩlakɩ-ɩ ɛzɩ ɛtazɩ nɛ ɛna ñɛ-wɛtʊ yɔ, pɩɩsaŋɩ-ɩ se eyele. Ŋwɛ yuŋ weyi nɛ ɛyʊ ɛɛtɛŋ ñɔ-tɔm yɔ, pɩtɩna nɛ ɛyʊ ɛɖɔkɩ-ŋ pɩfɛyɩ yebu; Ñɛ-wɛtʊ lɩnɩ le nɛ paasɩŋ ñɔ-tɔm ? Tɔm kɔpɔzaɣ ŋga ɖicosuu-kɛ tobi. Ñɛ-wɛtʊ nɛ tɩ-tɩ solo, mbʊ pʊyɔɔ yɔ ɖooo ŋŋwɛɛ, natʊyʊ taasoki ña-taa se tɩpɩsɩ-ŋ nɔɔyʊjaʊ. Kabɩyɛ kʊnʊŋ, ña-pɩɣa canɩɣna-ŋ nɛ kewiliɣ-ŋ, nɛ kasaŋ-ŋ ño-yuŋ, ñe-ɖeu nɛ ñe-leleŋ yɔɔ.'' and reprinted in (1997) no. 22, p.33.

"My Kabiye language, you are so beautiful! When anyone pronounces you and another listens, you are like a song. But anyone who does not ponder you deeply will not perceive your beauty. Anyone who listens attentively when you are being spoken must, as it were, dig deeply to discover your character. It is because of this inexhaustible weightiness that we cannot let go of you. From where does this impenetrable character come? We can reply straight away to this question. Your character is unique, because ever since you came into being, you have never suffered any outside influences which could turn you into something else. Kabiye language, your child is glad for you, cherishes and praises you, because of your strength, your beauty and your sweetness.

References

External links

Documentation, installation files and fonts for typing Kabiye on your computerEthnologue entry for Kabiye"Lamaakaaou: journalisme, Communication pour le développement, Développement personnel"

PanAfriL10n page on Kabiye"Kabiye Proverbs" Facebook page"Blog sur la langue et la culture kabiyè"Association des Femmes pour l'Alphabétisation, la Santé et les Activités génératrices de revenusFree audio Bible in KabiyeThe New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, free videos, audio books and other bible study material (Jehovah's Witnesses)

{{Authority control Kabye people Languages of Togo Languages of Benin Languages of Ghana Gurunsi languages