Ebook: The Ega Language of Côte d'Ivoire: Etymologies and Implications for Classification

2004. - 17 p.The Ega language is spoken in western Côte d’Ivoire, as an enclave language among Kru speakers. It has been investigated by Rémy Bole-Richard (1983, ms.) and more recently by a project led by Dafydd Gibbon (). Ega has been considered a threatened language, although it now seems likely that there are more speakers than previously thought. Bole-Richard & Lafage (1983) argue that Ega is a Kwa language on the basis of lexicostatistics and they include it in a set with other Kwa languages in Côte d’Ivoire. Although the maximum lexicostatistic percentage with any individual language is only 13%, they give Ega 35% with the group as a whole. Ega frequently shares a common root with only one other Kwa language. The text notes that Ega is in other ways exceptional. It has a very complete set of alternating V-prefixes on nominal stems, more closely resembling Bantoid languages than its immediate neighbours, as well as a complete set of fortis/lenis oppositions in voiced consonants. The nominal prefixes do suggest that Ega is a
Niger-Congo or even an East Volta-Congo language, but the evidence is less than compelling that it is closely related to the Kwa languages. In this analysis1, most of the original transcriptions are preserved as presented in the texts. Bole-Richard's transcriptions have undergone minor modifications, however.