Kwa Languages - Languages

Languages

See the box at right for a current classification.

The various clusters of languages included in Kwa are at best distantly related, and it has not been demonstrated that they are closer to each other than to neighboring Niger–Congo languages.

Stewart distinguished the following major branches, which historical-comparative analysis supports as valid groups:

• Potou–Tano (including e.g. Guang and Akan)
• Ga–Dangme
• Na-Togo
• Ka-Togo
• Gbe (dubious, as they show more features of Kwa the closer one moves to Akan)

The Lagoon languages of southern Ivory Coast are not particularly close to any of these, nor to each other, so they are left ungrouped:

• Avikam–Alladian
• Attié
• Abé
• Adjukru
• Abidji
• Ega

Since Stewart, Ega has been tentatively removed, and the Gbe languages reassigned to Volta–Niger. Some of the Na-Togo and Ka-Togo languages have been placed into separate branches of Kwa. See the infobox at right for the resulting branches.

Ethnologue divides the Kwa languages into two broad geographical groupings: Nyo and Left bank, but this is not a genealogical classification. The Nyo group collapses Stewart's Potou–Tano and Ga–Dangme branches and also includes the ungrouped languages of southern Ivory Coast, while the Ka/Na Togo and Gbe languages are called Left bank because they are spoken on the eastern side of the Volta River.