Ghanaian versus Togolese Ewe (prepublication draft May 21 2026)

Abstract

Based on a survey of some Ghanaian and Togolese dialects of Ewe, this paper shows that there are features that distinguish dialects of Ewe spoken in Ghana from dialects of Ewe spoken in Togo. These features include lexical items, syntactic constructions, pragmatic uses of certain expressions and a hand gesture. Because of these systematic differences, Ewe dialects spoken in Ghana are collectively referred to as Ghanaian Ewe, and those in Togo are collectively referred to as Togolese Ewe. 

Keywords: Ewe, dialect, Ghana, Togo

Prepublication draft: Ghanaian versus Togolese Ewe (with Palakimwé Bidadjou and Selikem Gotah)

This paper has been accepted in JWAL (Journal of West African Languages).

https://journalofwestafricanlanguages.org/

I have been reading this journal for around 40 years, so I am very proud to finally contribute to it. The paper I am posting here is not the formatted final version, rather it is a prepublication draft. For the final, citable version, readers should consult JWAL near the end of the summer.

Two previous versions of this paper were posted here:

https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2025/07/ghanaian-versus-togolese-ewe.html

Writing this paper was a completely new experience for me. Most of my linguistic work has dealt with syntax, syntax/semantics interface issues, or language documentation (grammars, dictionaries). But this paper is none of those. Rather, it is an attempt to try to characterize dialect differences in terms of the country where they are spoken. So effectively, it is a claim that national borders in Africa can influence the way that languages take shape, on many different levels (lexical, syntactic, morphological, phonological, phonetic, pragmatic, gestures). My feeling is that we just uncovered the tip of the iceberg, and that there are lots and lots of interesting research projects to pursue.

In addition, this paper is the preliminary stage of a much bigger project that I have planned with my co-authors to create an online map of Ewe dialects spanning Ghana, Togo and Benin. The basic idea is that a person could logon to the map, and perform queries about the relationships between the various Ewe dialects spoken in these countries. We learned so many new and interesting things about this kind of project by writing the JWAL paper.