Jump to content

Fon language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected fromFongbe)
Fon
fɔ̀ngbè
Native toBenin,Nigeria,Togo.
EthnicityFon people
Native speakers
2.3 million (2019–2021)[1]
Dialects
  • Agbome
  • Arohun
  • Gun
  • Gbekon
  • Kpase
Latin,Gbékoun
Official status
Official language in
Benin
Language codes
ISO 639-2fon
ISO 639-3fon
Glottologfonn1241Fon language
Gbe languages. Fon is purple.
This article containsIPAphonetic symbols.Without properrendering support,you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead ofUnicodecharacters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.
PersonFon
PeopleFon-nu
Languagefɔ̀ngbè
CountryDahomey

Fon(fɔ̀ngbè,pronounced[fɔ̃̀ɡ͡bē][2]) also known asDahomeanis the language of theFon people.It belongs to theGbegroup within the largerAtlantic–Congofamily. It is primarily spoken inBenin,as well as inNigeriaandTogoby approximately 2.28 million speakers.[1]Like the other Gbe languages, Fon is anisolating languagewith aSVObasic word order.

[edit]

InBenin,Frenchis the official language, and Fon and other indigenous languages, includingYomandYoruba,are classified as national languages.[3]

Dialects

[edit]

The standardized Fon language is part of the Fon cluster of languages inside the Eastern Gbe languages.Hounkpati B Christophe CapogroupsAgbome,Kpase,Gun,Maxi and Weme (Ouémé) in the Fon dialect cluster, although other clusterings are suggested. Standard Fon is the primary target oflanguage planningefforts in Benin, although separate efforts exists forGun,Gen,and other languages of the country.[4]

Phonology

[edit]
"Welcome" (Kwabɔ) in Fon at a pharmacy atCotonou AirportinCotonou,Benin

Vowels

[edit]

Fon has seven oral vowelphonemesand five nasal vowel phonemes.

Vowel phonemes of Fon[5]
Oral Nasal
front back front back
Close i u ĩ ũ
Close-Mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ ɛ̃ ɔ̃
Open a ã

Consonants

[edit]
Consonant phonemes of Fon[5]
Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Labial
-velar
"Nasal" m~b n~ɖ
Occlusive (p) t d tʃ dʒ k ɡ kp ɡb
Fricative f v s z x ɣ xʷ ɣʷ
Approximant l~ɾ ɲ~j w

/p/occurs only inlinguistic mimesisand loanwords but is often replaced by/f/in the latter, as incɔ́fù'shop'. Several of the voiced occlusives occur only before oral vowels, and thehomorganicnasal stops occur only before nasal vowels, which indicates that[b][m]and[ɖ][n]areallophones.[ɲ]is in free variation with[j̃]and so Fong can be argued to have no phonemic nasal consonants, a pattern rather common in West Africa.[a]/w/is nasalized (to[ŋʷ]) before nasal vowels, and may assimilate to[ɥ]before/i/./l/is sometimes also nasalized.[clarification needed]

The only consonant clusters in Fon have/l/or/j/as the second consonant. After (post)alveolars,/l/is optionally realized as[ɾ]:klɔ́'to wash',wlí'to catch',jlò[d͡ʒlò]~[d͡ʒɾò]'to want'.

Tone

[edit]

Fon has two phonemictones:high and low. High is realized as rising (low–high) after a voiced consonant. Basic disyllabic words have all four possibilities: high–high, high–low, low–high, and low–low.

In longerphonological words,such as verb and noun phrases, a high tone tends to persist until the final syllable, which, if it has a phonemic low tone, becomes falling (high–low). Low tones disappear between high tones, but their effect remains as adownstep.Rising tones (low–high) simplify to high after high (without triggering downstep) and to low before high.

Hwevísatɔ́,

/xʷèví-sà-tɔ́

[xʷèvísáꜜtɔ́‖

fish-sell-agent

é

é

é

s/he

ko

kò

kó

PERF

hɔ

xɔ̀

ꜜxɔ̂

buy

asón

àsɔ̃́

àsɔ̃́

crab

we.

wè/

wê‖]

two

Hwevísatɔ́, é ko hɔ asón we.

/xʷèví-sà-tɔ́ é kò xɔ̀ àsɔ̃́ wè/

[xʷèvísáꜜtɔ́‖ é kó ꜜxɔ̂ àsɔ̃́ wê‖]

fish-sell-agent s/he PERF buy crab two

"The fishmonger, she bought two crabs."

InOuidah,a rising or falling tone is realized as a mid tone. For example,mǐ'we, you', phonemically high-tone/bĩ́/but phonetically rising because of the voiced consonant, is generally mid-tone[mĩ̄]in Ouidah.

Orthographies

[edit]

Roman Alpha bet

[edit]

The Fon Alpha bet is based on the Latin Alpha bet, with the addition of the lettersƉ/ɖ,Ɛ/ɛ,andƆ/ɔ,and thedigraphsgb, hw, kp, ny, and xw.[6]

Fon Alpha bet
Majuscule A B C D Ɖ E Ɛ F G GB H HW I J K KP L M N NY O Ɔ P R S T U V W X XW Y Z
Minuscule a b c d ɖ e ɛ f g gb h hw i j k kp l m n ny o ɔ p r s t u v w x xw y z
Sound (IPA) a b t͡ɕ d ɖ e ɛ f ɡ ɡb ɣ ɣʷ i d͡ʑ k kp l m n ɲ o ɔ p r s t u v w x xʷ j z

Tone marking

[edit]

Tonesare marked as follows:

Tones are fully marked in reference books, but not always marked in other writing. The tone marking is phonemic, and the actual pronunciation may be different according to the syllable's environment.[7]

Gbékoun script

[edit]
Table of Gbékoun script
Main article:Gbékoun script

Speakers inBeninalso use a distinct script calledGbékounthat was invented by Togbédji Adigbè.[8][9] It has 24 consonants and 9 vowels, as it is intended to transcribe all the languages of Benin.

Sample text

[edit]

From theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights

Acɛ, susu kpo sisi ɖokpo ɔ kpo wɛ gbɛtɔ bi ɖo ɖò gbɛwiwa tɔn hwenu; ye ɖo linkpɔn bɔ ayi yetɔn mɛ kpe lo bɔ ye ɖo na do alɔ yeɖee ɖi nɔvinɔvi ɖɔhun.
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Use

[edit]

Radio programs in Fon are broadcast onORTBchannels.

Television programs in Fon are shown on theLa Beninoisesatellite TV channel.[10]

French used to be the only language ofeducation in Benin,but in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the government is experimenting with teaching some subjects in Benin schools in the country's local languages, among them Fon.[11][12][13]

Machine translation efforts

[edit]

There is an effort to create a machine translator for Fon (to and from French), by Bonaventure Dossou (from Benin) and Chris Emezue (from Nigeria).[14]Their project is called FFR.[15]It uses phrases fromJehovah's Witnessessermons as well as other biblical phrases as the research corpus to train aNatural Language Processing(NLP) neural net model.[16]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^This is a matter of perspective; it could also be argued that[b]and[ɖ]are denasalized allophones of/m/and/n/before oral vowels.

References

[edit]
  1. ^abFonatEthnologue(26th ed., 2023)Closed access icon
  2. ^Höftmann & Ahohounkpanzon, p. 179
  3. ^"Language data for Benin".Translators without Borders.Retrieved2022-10-12.
  4. ^Kluge, Angela (2007)."The Gbe Language Continuum of West Africa: A Synchronic Typological Approach to Prioritizing In-depth Sociolinguistic Research on Literature Extensibility"(PDF).Language Documentation & Conservation:182–215. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2021-11-11.Retrieved2018-07-05.
  5. ^abClaire Lefebvre; Anne-Marie Brousseau (2002).A Grammar of Fongbe.Walter de Gruyter. pp. 15–29.ISBN3-11-017360-3.
  6. ^Höftmann & Ahohounkpanzon, p. 19
  7. ^Höftmann & Ahohounkpanzon, p. 20
  8. ^Teddy G. (May 5, 2021)."Vulgarisation de l' Alpha bet:Gbékoun sur tout le territoire national Bilan de la première phase de sensibilisation".Matin libre(in French).
  9. ^"Alphabet" Gbékoun ": Un outil d'éveil de la conscience des peuples africains".La Nation(in French). June 21, 2021. p. 13.
  10. ^"BTV - La Béninoise TV - La Béninoise des Télés | La proximité par les langues".labeninoisetv.net(in French). Archived fromthe originalon 2018-07-03.Retrieved2018-07-03.
  11. ^Akpo, Georges."Système éducatif béninois: les langues nationales seront enseignées à l'école à la rentrée prochaine".La Nouvelle Tribune(in French). Archived fromthe originalon 2019-06-21.Retrieved2018-07-03.
  12. ^"Reportage Afrique - Bénin: l'apprentissage à l'école dans la langue maternelle".RFI(in French). 2013-12-26.Retrieved2018-07-03.
  13. ^"Langues nationales dans le système scolaire: La phase expérimentale continue, une initiative à améliorer - Matin Libre"(in French). Archived fromthe originalon 2018-07-03.Retrieved2018-07-03.
  14. ^"AI in Africa: Teaching a bot to read my mum's texts".BBC News.2020-04-29.Retrieved2022-10-12.
  15. ^"Project website".ffrtranslate.Retrieved2022-10-12.
  16. ^Emezue, Chris Chinenye; Dossou, Femi Pancrace Bonaventure (2020)."FFR v1.1: Fon-French Neural Machine Translation".Proceedings of the Fourth Widening Natural Language Processing Workshop.Seattle, USA: Association for Computational Linguistics: 83–87.arXiv:2003.12111.doi:10.18653/v1/2020.winlp-1.21.

Bibliography

[edit]
[edit]
Fon editionofWikipedia,the free encyclopedia
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fon_language&oldid=1245213760"