| Guéré | |
|---|---|
| Wè, Wɛɛ | |
| Native to | Ivory Coast |
| Region | Dix-Huit Montagnes,Moyen-Cavally |
Native speakers | 400,000 (2017)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:gxx – Central Gere(Southern Wee)wec – Neyo(Western Wee) |
| Glottolog | guer1240 |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Guéré (Gere), also calledWè (Wee), is aKru language spoken by over 300,000 people in theDix-Huit Montagnes andMoyen-Cavally regions ofIvory Coast.
Thephonology of Guere (here the Zagna dialect of Central Guere / Southern Wè)[2] is briefly sketched out below.
The consonant phonemes are as follows:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labial- velar | Labialized velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | voiceless | p | t | c | k | k͡p | kʷ |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ɡ͡b | ɡʷ | |
| implosive | ɓ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ||||
| voiced | v | z | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||
Allophones of some of these phonemes include:
In addition, while the nasal consonants/m,n/ and contrast with/ɓ/ and/l/ before oral vowels, and are thus separate phonemes, before nasal vowels only the nasal consonants occur./ɓ/ and/l/ do not occur before nasal vowels, suggesting that historically aphonemic merger between these sounds and the nasals/m,n/ may have occurred in this position.
Like manyWest African languages, Guere makes use of a contrast betweenvowels withadvanced tongue root and those withretracted tongue root. In addition,nasal vowels contrast phonemically withoral vowels.
| Oral | Nasal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| Close (ATR) | i | u | ĩ | ũ |
| Close (RTR) | ɪ | ʊ | ɪ̃ | ʊ̃ |
| Mid (ATR) | e | o | õ | |
| Mid (RTR) | ɛ | ɔ | ɛ̃ | ɔ̃ |
| Open (RTR) | a | ã | ||
Guere is atonal language and contrasts tentones:
| Tone | IPA | Example | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | ˩ | ɡ͡ba˩ | "to scatter" |
| Mid | ˧ | ɡ͡ba˧ | "to destroy" |
| High | ˦ | mɛ˦ | "to die" |
| Top | ˥ | ji˥ | "full" |
| Low–high rising | ˩˦ | ɡ͡bla˩˦ | "hat" |
| Low–top rising | ˩˥ | k͡plɔ̃˩˥ | "banana" |
| Mid–high rising | ˧˦ | ɓlo˧˦ | "wall" |
| High–top rising | ˦˥ | de˦˥ | "younger brother" |
| High–low falling | ˦˩ | ɡ͡ba˩a˦˩ | "goat" |
| Mid–low falling | ˧˩ | sre˧˩ | "penis" |
