Sociolinguistics of Bilingualism in Togo

This book is concerned with contact phenomena between two languages of distinct branches of Niger-Congo in Togo, Kabiye (Gur) and Ewe (Kwa). My research shows that Ewe has acquired a de facto dominant status as a lingua franca across Togo s ethno-linguistic communities. Kabiye speakers display widespread borrowing of Ewe words and code-switching. Hence, in areas where Kabiye and Ewe grammar are perceived to be congruent, despite some observable linguistic differences, Ewe insertions are frequent, with the insertions taking Kabiye morphology. But insertions are infrequent when the two grammars are perceived by the speakers to diverge. My study has underscored Sebba s (1995) notion of congruence as something that is a property of bilingual speakers mind and not a function of formal linguistics. Overall, I find no discernable Ewe influence on Kabiye syntax. This finding is in contrast to the code-switching cases that involve a Western language and an African language. Thus, unlike contact between a Western language and an African language, in this contact between two African languages there is little if any influence of the embedded language on the syntax of the matrix language.

Autorentext

Komlan Essowe Essizewa holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Lin¬guistics, New York University, and is currently associate professor of socio¬linguistics at the Université de Lomé, Togo. His research focuses on socio¬linguistics, specifically on West African languages and language contact phe¬nomena, bilingualism, code-switching, language variation.