Жаңа Ква тілдері: Африканың оңтүстік-шығысындағы тілдер тобы

Proposed language family in Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Togo

The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as yet undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south eastern part of Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo. The Kwa family belongs to the Niger Congo phylum. The name was introduced in 1895 by Gottlob Krause and derives from the word for 'people' (Kwa) in many of these languages, as illustrated by Akan names. This branch consists of around 50 different languages spoken by about 25 million people. Some of the largest Kwa languages are Ewe, Akan and Baule.

The word 'Kwa' was used by Gottlob Krause in 1885 for the Akan (or perhaps Tano), Gã, and Gbe languages, which have kwa or kua as their word for 'human being'. Since then the proposal has been dramatically expanded, only to revert to something approaching its initial conception. In 1952 Westermann and Bryan expanded Kwa to the various Lagoon languages of southern Ivory Coast and to what are now called the Volta–Niger languages of southern Nigeria. Greenberg (1963) added the Kru languages of Liberia, the Ghana–Togo Mountain languages which Westermann and Bryan had specifically excluded, and Ijaw of the Niger delta; West Kwa included the languages from Liberia to Dahomey (Republic of Benin), and East Kwa the languages of Nigeria. Bennett & Sterk (1977) proposed that the Yoruboid and Igboid languages belonged in Benue–Congo rather than in Kwa. Stewart (1989) removed Kru, Ijaw, and Volta–Niger (East Kwa), but kept the Ghana–Togo Mountain and Lagoon languages, as well as adding a few obscure, newly described languages. Stewart's classification is the basis of more recent conceptions. To disambiguate this from Greenberg's influential classification, the reduced family is sometimes called "New Kwa".

Bennett, Patrick R. & Sterk, Jan P. (1977) 'South Central Niger–Congo: A reclassification'. Studies in African Linguistics, 8, 241–273. Hintze, Ursula (1959) Bibliographie der Kwa Sprachen und der Sprachen der Togo Restvölker (mit 11 zweifarbigen Sprachenkarten). Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Stewart, John M. (1989) 'Kwa'. In: Bendor Samuel & Hartell (eds.) The Niger–Congo languages. Lanham, MD: The University Press of America. Westermann, Diedrich Hermann (1952) Languages of West Africa (Handbook of African Languages Part II). London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press. Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger–Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) African Languages An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11–42.