Gen language
Gbe language of Togo
Gen (also called Gɛ̃, Gɛn gbe, Gebe, Guin, Mina, Mina-Gen, and Popo) is a Gbe language spoken in the southeast of Togo in the Maritime Region. Like the other Gbe languages, Gen is a tonal language.
01History
The Gen language is spoken by the Gen-Mina people, who originated from Accra and Elmina in Ghana and then moved to modern-day Togo. The Mina from Elmina migrated because of the Denkyira wars of aggression, while the Gen came over from Accra after their defeat in the Akwamu wars. The two groups intermingled with the indigenous Ewe, resulting in their Ewe dialect having words borrowed from Fanti, Gã and various European languages.
The Gen language is mutually intelligible with Ewe and is considered to be one of the many dialects of Ewe.
There were 476,000 Gen-speakers in Togo in 2019, and 144,000 in Benin in 2021.
02Phonology
Vowels
The vowels of Mina (Gen) are as follows:
a ã e ɛ ẽ i ĩ o ɔ õ u ũ
03Orthography
The orthography is defined in the Alphabet des langues nationales of Benin. In the 1990 edition, Gen shared its alphabet with Waci. In the 2008 edition, Gen has its own alphabet (without F with hook ⟨ƒ⟩).
| Uppercase | A | B | C | D | Ɖ | E | Ɛ | F | G | GB | Ɣ | H | X | I | J | K | KP | L | M | N | NY | Ŋ | Ɔ | P | S | T | U | Ʋ | V | W | Y | Z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowercase | a | b | c | d | ɖ | e | ɛ | f | g | gb | ɣ | h | x | i | j | k | kp | l | m | n | ny | ŋ | ɔ | p | s | t | u | ʋ | v | w | y | z |
Nasalisation is indicated with a n after the vowel (⟨an ɔn ɛn in un⟩).
04Misidentification with South American Arda language
Mina has in the past misidentified as the 'Arda' language isolate of South America.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Gen language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Gbe languages.png by Mark Dingemanse, CC BY 2.5
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