Kwa
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9.9
A group of related languages spoken in West Africa from Ivory Coast to Nigeria
- noun
- Specialized
:
kwa
- Language affiliations, such as Kwa (Niger-Congo), are based on Greenberg 1966 and Fivaz and Scott 1978.
- Kwa languages
Examples
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Nenda kwa amani.
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The Dangme, like their Ga neighbors, speak a language belonging to the eastern Kwa family of the Niger-Congo linguistic stock (Westermann 1970; Kropp-Dakubu 1982).
Academic text (1991) -
Many languages, including Akan and Ewe, are part of the Kwa language family.
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The Kwa languages are primarily spoken in countries like Ghana and Nigeria.
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Researchers study the Kwa languages to understand their structure and evolution.
Surface Forms
Etymology
The word Kwa is said to come from a West African word meaning 'people' or 'speech', and language experts used that local name for a set of related languages spoken from the Ivory Coast to Nigeria, so Kwa refers to this group of languages.