Talk:Gbe languages

message: Can someone add the english pronuciation of the word "Gbe"?
Axamoto 14:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, I've added it. I have thought about adding a sound file, but since an untrained ear can't hear the difference anyway between the voiced bilabial stop [b] and the voiced labio-velar stop [gb] (the only discernible difference is loudness), I've decided not to. Instead, I've added a note  — mark ✎ 21:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of "Gbe" 

message: Although this suggstion is probably a little late, with this article having been promoted to FAC status, & featured on the front page, but shouldn't :Template:language be used in this article? It appears to me that all of the needed info is in this article. -- llywrch 17:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so —  is a template for individual languages. This is a cluster of languages (or a language family), and we don't have a taxobox for that yet. — mark ✎ 21:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taxobox question 

message: Is there a particular reason for having that heading in French, or is it just an oversight by whoever translated it from the original french?
:Yes there is, and no, it wasn't translated from French. That section mentions the influential 1988 work of H.B. Capo, titled Renaissance du Gbe. As the title of that book nicely captures the revival of a broader linguistic interest in the Gbe languages, I thought it a good line for the heading. — mark ✎ 20:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaissance du Gbe? 

message: Something isn't right about the description of Capo's account of nasality. Voiced oral & nasal stops have been argued to be allophonic in several West African languages, including most of Western Kru, but the analysis doesn't apply to Gbe, or at least not to Fon. It requires not only that there be no nasality contrast after nasal stops, but also that there be none after voiced oral stops. Gbe only matches the first condition. Basic Fon verbs like dòn "pull" and gǎn "escape" would not be possible if the description in this article were correct. 
Also, it wouldn't be necessary to postulate elided vowels for syllabic nasals, only that the nasal stop were the underlying allophone, and were denasalized before oral vowels. kwami 11:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't Capo's articles lying around here right now, but I remember that I based the description of his account almost literally on relevant parts of his 1981 and 1988 publications.  I will try to look it up, to see on which data his analysis is based. As for the postulation of elided vowels, that only reflects Capo's position. — mark ✎ 11:23, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  nasality 

message: I also doubt the Doctrina comment.  In Timbuktu, most of the manuscripts are in Arabic however some were also written in the Songhai language and probably in Mande as well.  But I've seen two sources stating that the manuscripts were written in Songhai and other "a'jami" languages. A'jami means foreign, implying that the language used to write the text was not Arabic. Considering that literacy goes back at least to about 1300 AD in Mali alone, I think the Doctrina claim should be removed.    
this is my source
http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=371
--Scott Free 22:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said above, I'm not attached to the claim at all. I've changed it into 'one of the earliest texts'. — mark ✎ 06:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you read carefully the link mentioned above, it is  clear that it does not claim that non Arabic languages were written in Timbuctoo earlier than in 18th century. I think that earlier scientific consenus was, that there are no extant manuscripts of a'jami tradition earlier than 18th century (possibly excluding some Berber languages). It is true that nowadays there seems to be some short texts written in Songhay that predate the colonialism, but you have to remember that colonial period began in Mali around 1900 AD. I have not found anywhere any attempt to date those Songhay texts so it is quite possible that they are from 18th or 19th century and do not, therefore, change the general picture. 213.216.211.69 10:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manuscripts written in Songhai, too 

message: How similar are the Gbe languages to one another?  Could someone that spoke Aja understand Ewe and vice versa? Thnx in advance. :) Scott Free 14:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mutual intelligibility 

message: Blench now places Gbe in a Volta-Niger linkage. kwami (talk) 00:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  classification 

message: Doing the sums on the following two sentences from the first paragraph makes my mathematical spidey sense tingle. Could you, dear reader, please double check these numbers?
The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe (10.3 million speakers in Ghana and Togo), followed by Fon (5 million, mainly in Benin). Chhildeb (talk) 12:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of speakers