Grebo language
Encyclopedia
Grebo is dialect cluster of the Kru languages
, spoken by the Grebo people of Liberia and the Krumen of Ivory Coast.
were the Seaside Grebo, or Glebo, their speech came to be known simply as Grebo. In the absence of other qualification, the term Grebo language will refer simply to the Glebo speech variety.
However, as will be seen from the discussion below, considerable ambiguity and imprecision continue to exist with respect to the use of the term Grebo; it is not always clear precisely which variety it is intended to denote, or, if it is being used as a group term, what is to be included in the group. The root of this imprecision grows from several factors:
Any of the twenty-five or more dialects in the group is likely to be called (a variety of) Grebo.
/ bidialectalism
is normal in such a context, but so is the commonly observed thrust for autonomy. Nevertheless, factors such as exogamy
and the needs of commerce foster intercommunication strategies. This makes the degree of interintelligibility of the varieties seem less than if they were considered in isolation.
Diglossia
(extended or not), often with Liberian (Pidgin) English provides an addition dimension to the complexity described above.
Kru languages
-References:* Westerman, Diedrich Hermann Languages of West Africa . London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press.-External links:* at Ethnologue*...
, spoken by the Grebo people of Liberia and the Krumen of Ivory Coast.
Definition
Since the first group contacted by European explorers and Americo-Liberian colonists reaching the area of Cape PalmasCape Palmas
Cape Palmas is a headland on the extreme southeast end of the coast of Liberia, West Africa, at the extreme southwest corner of the northern half of the continent. The Cape itself consists of a small, rocky peninsula connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus. Immediately to the west of the...
were the Seaside Grebo, or Glebo, their speech came to be known simply as Grebo. In the absence of other qualification, the term Grebo language will refer simply to the Glebo speech variety.
However, as will be seen from the discussion below, considerable ambiguity and imprecision continue to exist with respect to the use of the term Grebo; it is not always clear precisely which variety it is intended to denote, or, if it is being used as a group term, what is to be included in the group. The root of this imprecision grows from several factors:
- The incompleteness of the data; and
- Lack of rigor in the classification methodology; and
- The fact that the speech area involved is a language continuum.
Ethnologue classification
Ethnologue subdivides the Grebo branch of Western Kru into nine coded languages based on the needs of literacy, several consisting of divergent dialects with strong ethnocentric identities.- Glio-Oubi
- KrumenKrumen languageKrumen is a dialect continuum spoken by the Krumen people of Liberia and Ivory Coast . It is a branch of the Grebo languages, a subfamily of the Kru languages and ultimately of the Niger–Congo languages. It had 48,300 speakers as of 1993...
(3 languages in Côte d'Ivoire) - Grebo properGrebo languageGrebo is dialect cluster of the Kru languages, spoken by the Grebo people of Liberia and the Krumen of Ivory Coast.-Definition:Since the first group contacted by European explorers and Americo-Liberian colonists reaching the area of Cape Palmas were the Seaside Grebo, or Glebo, their speech came to...
(5 languages)
Any of the twenty-five or more dialects in the group is likely to be called (a variety of) Grebo.
Multilingualism
A degree of bilingualismMultilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
/ bidialectalism
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
is normal in such a context, but so is the commonly observed thrust for autonomy. Nevertheless, factors such as exogamy
Exogamy
Exogamy is a social arrangement where marriage is allowed only outside of a social group. The social groups define the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. In social studies, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects:...
and the needs of commerce foster intercommunication strategies. This makes the degree of interintelligibility of the varieties seem less than if they were considered in isolation.
Diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
(extended or not), often with Liberian (Pidgin) English provides an addition dimension to the complexity described above.
External links
- US Navy map of Maryland in Liberia, 1853. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/map_item.pl?data=/home/www/data/gmd/gmd8/g8883/g8883m/lm000016.sid&itemLink=r?ammem/gmd:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(g8883m+lm000016))+@field(COLLID+lmmap))&title=Maryland+in+Liberia+/+drawn+under+the+superintendence+of+Com.+Lynch,+U.S.N.,+at+Wm.+Sides+Office,+Balt.&style=lmmap&legend=