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Glite Dictionary
🌍 From West Africa 🗣️ A language group
West African

West African

5.9
A group of languages spoken in West Africa, for example Yoruba and Wolof
  • noun
translation icon : lenguas de África occidental
  • West African languages

Examples

  • The West African country has made a lot of progress.

    Blog text (6)

  • In the West African language Ewe, which is spoken today in Nigeria and is related to several West Coast languages, dzhon means a sorcerer or magician, and kunu means something terrible that can cause death.

    Academic text (1991)

  • The children in the village learn their history and values through stories in their West African language.

  • Yoruba and Wolof are examples of languages classified as West African.

  • During the festival, many songs were performed in various West African languages, showcasing their rich cultural heritage.

Surface Forms

West African singular
West Africans plural

Morphology

West + African

The meaning 'from the western part of Africa' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'West' (western region) with 'African' (pertaining to Africa). This geographic, compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows standard adjective+noun combination rules, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

West African as a noun names the languages from the western part of Africa; imagine communities along the west coast speaking related tongues like Yoruba and Wolof. That's why it means 'a group of languages spoken in the far western region of West Africa'.