Adangme (also called Dangme), is a Kwa language spoken in south-eastern Ghana by 800,000 people.

Some sources list Adangbe as another name for the same language whereas Ethnologue lists it as a different language in the Left bank branch of the Kwa family, and it has a separate ISO 639-3 code of 'adq'.

Classification

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Adangme is a Kwa language, part of the Niger-Congo family. It is very closely related to Ga, and together they form the Ga-Dangme branch within Kwa.

Geographic distribution

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Adangme is spoken in Ghana by 800,000 people.

There are six main dialects which co-incide with political divisions. The coastal dialects are Ada, Ningo and Prampram (Gbugbla). The inland dialects are Shai (S), Krobo (Klo) and Osudoku.

Phonology

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Consonants

• has allophones and
• has an allophone

Consonant phonemes

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar (Palato- alveolar)		Palatal		Velar		Glottal		Labial-velar		Labia- lized velar
Plosive
Nasal
Fricative
Affricate
Approximant
Lateral approximant

Vowels

Adangme has 7 oral vowels and 5 nasal vowels.

Monophthongs	Front	Central	Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open

Monophthongs	Front	Central	Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open

Tones

Adangme has three tones: high, mid and low. Like many West African languages, it has tone terracing.

Phonotactics

The possible syllable structures are V, CV, or CCV where the second consonant is .

Writing system

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Adangme is written with a form of the Latin alphabet. Tones and nasalisation are not normally written.

Orthographic and phonemic correspondences include the following:

• j -
• ng -
• ngm -
• ny -
• ts -
• y -
• -
• -

References

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External links

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• Ethnologue entry
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Dangme

Languages of Ghana | Kwa languages

Adangmeg