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The West African Linguistic Society (abbreviated as WALS) is an academic scholarly society formed in 1965 to foster and encourage research in the West African languages and literature as well as provide a permanent forum for interaction and exchange of ideas among scholars of African languages. Membership of the Society is largely drawn from ...
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages [note 1] or North Atlantic languages [1]) of West Africa are a major subgroup of the Niger–Congo languages.. The Atlantic languages are spoken along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Liberia, though transhumant Fula speakers have spread eastward and are found in large numbers across the Sahel, from Senegal to Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan.
West African Pidgin English arose during the period of the transatlantic slave trade as a language of commerce between British and African slave traders. Portuguese merchants were the first Europeans to trade in West Africa beginning in the 15th century, and West African Pidgin English contains numerous words of Portuguese origin such as sabi ('to know'), a derivation of the Portuguese saber. [3]
Language status is distinct from, though intertwined with, language prestige and language function. Language status is the given position (or standing) of a language against other languages. [9] A language garners status according to the fulfillment of four attributes, described in 1968 by two different authors, Heinz Kloss and William Stewart ...
Clickable map showing the traditional language families, subfamilies and major languages spoken in Africa. Most languages natively spoken in Africa belong to one of the two large language families that dominate the continent: Afroasiatic, or Niger–Congo.
The journal was established in 1964 and up to volume 8 published by Cambridge University Press.It was subsequently taken over by the West African Linguistic Society. Editing and production were initially undertaken at the University of Ibadan, but production was later transferred to the Summer Institute of Linguistics beginning with volu
The writing systems of Africa refer to the current and historical practice of writing systems on the African continent, both indigenous and those introduced.In many African societies, history generally used to be recorded orally despite most societies having developed a writing script, leading to them being termed "oral civilisations" in contrast to "literate civilisations".
Since the establishment of a working group at the West African Languages Congress at Cotonou in 1980, H. B. Capo's name suggestion has been generally accepted: ' Gbe ', which is the word for 'language/dialect' in each of the languages.