31/12/2024
EƲEGBE AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
✍🏾: NuwɔZã-D'1st
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Eʋe or Eʋegbe is a language spoken by millions of people in west Africa.
It wrongly spelled and pronounced as 'Ewe' by most non-Eʋe scholars due to the absence of the Eʋe or latin aphabet letter 'Ʋ' from the English aphabets. The native Eʋes who do not have the Eʋe aphabets on their smartphones or typing electronics adopted the spelling the 'Vhe' ( 'Everh, Everhs, Evhe, Evhes, Evhegbe') as an alternative to the right spellings 'Eʋe, Eʋes, Eʋegbe'.
The Eʋe people are called 'Eʋeawo or Eʋeviwo'.
The name Eʋe was coined from the equivalent of the word - 'valley' - in the Eʋe language. Hence 'Eʋeawo, the people of the valley'.
Eʋes love to stay close to sources of water because of their farming and fishing activities.
The Eʋes are traditionally farmers who choose to live in valleys where the water table is high and therefore their lands support year round farming and fishing activities.
Eʋes are therefore called, people of the valley or low land, eʋeawo, the eʋe people or eʋedukɔ, the eʋe kingdom, eʋe state, or eʋe nation.
The Ghana Eʋes are natively called 'Amuawo' or 'Amuganutoame viwo' in relations to the native name 'Amu' for River Volta which majorly flows through TransVolta Tɔgoland or Western Tɔgoland.
The Eʋe territory or territories are called: Eʋedukɔ, Eʋenyigba, Đenyigba, Miađenyigba.
I'll write more about the origin and history of the Eʋe people in my next write-up but this is mainly about the unique language of the Eʋe people which makes it an international standard language.
Eʋegbe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called the Gbe languages with its roots in the Niger–Congo language family.
Like many African languages, Eʋegbe is tonal language. What this simply means is that, the meaning of a word changes if it is pronounced in a different pitch. For instance, the word 'bu' said with a low pitch means "respect", but when it's said with a high pitch it means "lose" and you can find this evident in most pitches of Eʋe words.
Eʋegbe is natively and originally spoken in four (4) different west African countries (TransVolta Tɔgoland territory of Ghana, southern half of Togo, Dahomɛ-Benin, Gbadagry in south west Nigeria and in a town in Rivers State in Nigeria called Gokana).
Let note that the Dahomɛs calls their GBE language the 'Fongbe' and it very similar to the Eʋegbe.
A little above 40% of Togo population are Eʋes and speaks the Eʋegbe making Eʋegbe the major native language in Togo 🇹🇬 (Tɔgodo). They covers the southern half of the country.
According to the Ghana statistical service 2021 population census, out of over 40 ethnic groups and 9 major tribes in Ghana, the Eʋe tribe is the 3rd largest tribe after the Akans and the Dagbanis respectively and Eʋegbe is the 2nd widely spoken language after the Akan languages in Ghana.
Haitians and some other south American slaves nations have their ancestral roots from most Eʋe territories from west Africa and that's why they've some Eʋe terminologies in their mixed formed languages.
In Germany, Eventhough it not part of their original languages, but It one of the many languages that was taught as a language course at the University of Bremen-Germany hence making it one of the languages spoken in Bremen town during colonial eras; This happened due to the deep colonial relationship that Germany had with the Eʋe territories from west African before the 2nd world war. The Bremen people wrote the Presbyterian hymns, Eʋe dictionaries, some Eʋe grammers and the Eʋe Bible.
Some groups of Eʋe Fisher folks on their searching quests of fruitful fishing grounds settled at Ivory coast and speaks their native Eʋegbe.
Though I'm yet to gather some evidence but I read that some groups of people in Liberia also speaks Eʋegbe.
It’s believed that some towns and places in India also speak Eʋegbe and I will find time to research on Eʋegbe in Liberia and India.
The various Eʋegbe Dialects:
Eʋe is itself a dialect cluster of the Gbe languages, which include Eʋe, Fon, Gen, Aja or Adja, Xwla, Phla Pherã etc. All Gbe languages share at least some intelligibility with one another.
There are alots of Eʋe dialects which varies slightly from the pronounciations of some words and terminologies. In Ghana Volta Region, the dialects may be broadly grouped geographically into:
1. Coastal, River or southern dialects. e.g., Aŋlɔ (Aŋlɔgbe), Avenɔ (Avenɔgbe) and the Someys, Tɔŋú (Tɔŋugbe) and Agavegbe), etc
2. Inland dialects characterised indigenously as Eʋedome (Ʋedome-gbe), Peki, Ho, Akpini-gbe Kpándo etc.
Other Eʋe dialects within the four territories of Eʋedukɔ are; Lomégbe, Danyi, Awlan, Gbín, Vhlin, Vo, Kpelen, Vɛ́, Agu, Fodome, Wancé, Wací etc
Even though this write-up is majorly about the Eʋegbe as a language but let lemme add just a little about the Ghana Eʋe tribe👇
With regards to nickname, As you have read, the Ghana Eʋes have no other name than the original name 'Eʋe'.
'Aŋlɔni, Ayigbeni, Ayigbenyo and Number 9 ni', are all fake names and must be discontinued.
Aŋlɔs, as said earlier is just a subset of the whole Eʋes tribe just like Ʋedomes hence must not be used as a synonym for the name 'Eʋes'.
Ayigbe is a nickname given by the Ga people in Ghana to their fellows in the Republic of Togo. Any Ga who refers to an Eʋe as 'ayigbe', lacks history of their fellows kins in Togo. The name ayigbe has nothing to do with the Eʋes.
The name Number 9 was given to the Eʋes after the first Miss Ghana was crowned. The Lady came from Alavanyo amongst northern Eʋes. She was called Monica Amekoafia. She wore number 9 tag.
In areas of contributions to Ghana;
Ghanaian Eʋes played very important roles during the struggle for independence and after. Philip Gbeho of Aŋlɔ composed the national anthem while Dr Ephraim Amu from Peki Avetile, composed, what can be called, the indigenous national anthem of Ghana. He originally composed it in Eʋegbeme as 'Mia ɖenyigba lolo la' before translating it into twi – Yɛn ara asase ni and other Ghanaian languages - Ga, Dagbani etc
Furthermore, many other Eʋes played leading roles during the struggle towards independence for Ghana. One notable name in the political scene was Kɔmla Agbeli Gbedemah, from Aŋlɔ - Anyako.
Gbedemah worked closely with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and it was he who manuevered for Nkrumah’s name to be on the ballot box when Nkrumah remained in prison. He was more of an action man for Nkrumah hence the Backbone behind Nkrumah's Independence gains for Ghana.
Oympio (the first president of Togo) would've achieve the grand aim of all Eʋes of forming the 'United States of Eʋes' stretching from Western Togoland presently in Ghana to Gbadagry in Western Nigeria (Eʋenyigba) if Gbedemah was supposed to be on His side. For political restraining reasons, I will not go deeper into that particular topic.
Another contribution to the formation and achievements of Nkrumah's Ghana was the access of the Volta river which stretches majorly through western Togoland which Nkrumah needed to build the Akosombo dam (originally known as Kɔkusobo) for electricity generation for Ghana and other neighboring countries hence one major reason why Nkrumah convinced TransVolta Togoland Territory to join the other territories towards the formation of the new country called 'Ghana'.
In conclusion, The Non-Eʋes among the Eʋe ethnic group in Ghana - Avatime, Logba, Nyagbo, Tafi, and others, are almost inseparable from the Eʋes. There's no differentiation among them and the Eʋes. It more like adopted family kins just like the inseperable love between some of the tribes of Oti(formally and originally called Volta north) and the Eʋes of Volta Region (formally classified as Volta south before the division took place in 2018).
Inaccordance to 2010 and 2020 population census of Ghana, Eʋes were the 2nd largest ethnic group with 31% at Oti region after Gurma with 36% before the Guans with 18% etc in 2010, and in 2020, the Eʋes ranked 3rd with 20.1% after the Guans with 20.4 and the Gurmas with 45.4%.
There are more Eʋes outside their original Volta region. This is due to the search of job availabilities largely in the capital city - Accra due to the limited job opportunities at Volta region but most of them usually find their way back to Volta especially during special occasions like Festivals - Hogbetsotso, TeZa, Gbi - Za and other 17+ festivals in Volta. One other festival that usually brings Eʋes back home is Easter, funerals and family reunions.
Write-up by: NuwɔZã Kle'Yingɔ - Agbavitɔ aka Gabriel Nuworza Gadborn
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