Fon language

Fon
fɔ̀ngbè
Native to	Benin, Nigeria, Togo
Ethnicity	Fon people
Native speakers	2.3 million (2019–2021)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta–Congo Volta–Niger Gbe Fon
Dialects	Agbome Arohun Gun Gbekon Kpase
Writing system	Latin Gbékoun
Official status
Official language in	Benin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	fon
ISO 639-3	fon – inclusive code Individual codes: guw – Gun mxl – Maxi Gbe wem – Weme Gbe
Glottolog	fonn1241  Fon language
ELP
File:Gbe languages.png Gbe languages. Fon is purple.

Person	Fon
People	Fon-nu
Language	fɔ̀ngbè
Country	Danhɔmɛ

Fon (fɔ̀ngbè, pronounced [fɔ̃̀ɡ͡bē]), also known as Dahomean or Beninese, is the language of the Fon people. It belongs to the Gbe group within the larger Atlantic–Congo family. It is primarily spoken in Benin, as well as in Nigeria and Togo by approximately 2.3 million speakers. Like the other Gbe languages, Fon is an isolating language with a SVO basic word order.

Cultural and legal status

In Benin, French is the official language, and Fon and other indigenous languages, including Yom and Yoruba, are classified as national languages.

Dialects

The standardized Fon language is part of the Fon cluster of languages inside the Eastern Gbe languages. Hounkpati B Christophe Capo groups Agbome, Kpase, Gun, Maxi and Weme (Ouémé) in the Fon dialect cluster, although other clusterings are suggested. Standard Fon is the primary target of language planning efforts in Benin, although separate efforts exist for Gun, Gen, and other languages of the country.

Phonology

File:Fon Kwabɔ.jpg

"Welcome" (Kwabɔ) in Fon at a pharmacy at Cotonou Airport in Cotonou, Benin

Vowels

Fon has seven oral vowel phonemes and five nasal vowel phonemes.

Vowel phonemes of Fon

	Oral		Nasal
	front	back	front	back
Close	i	u	ĩ	ũ
Close-Mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ	ɛ̃	ɔ̃
Open	a		ã

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Fon

	Labial		Coronal		Palatal		Velar		Labial -velar
"Nasal"	m ~ b		n ~ ɖ
Occlusive	(p)		t	d	tʃ	dʒ	k	ɡ	kp	ɡb
Fricative	f	v	s	z			x	ɣ	xʷ	ɣʷ
Approximant			l ~ ɾ		ɲ ~ j				w

/p/ occurs in only linguistic mimesis and loanwords but is often replaced by /f/ in the latter, as in cɔ́fù 'shop'. Several of the voiced occlusives occur before only oral vowels, and the homorganic nasal stops occur before only nasal vowels, which indicates that [b] [m] and [ɖ] [n] are allophones. [ɲ] is in free variation with [j̃] and so Fong can be argued to have no phonemic nasal consonants, a pattern rather common in West Africa. /w/ is nasalized (to [ŋʷ]) before nasal vowels, and may assimilate to [ɥ] before /i/. /l/ is sometimes also nasalized.

The only consonant clusters in Fon have /l/ or /j/ as the second consonant. After (post)alveolars, /l/ is optionally realized as [ɾ]: klɔ́ 'to wash', wlí 'to catch', jlò [d͡ʒlò] ~ [d͡ʒɾò] 'to want'.

Tone

Fon has two phonemic tones: high and low. High is realized as rising (low–high) after a voiced consonant. Basic disyllabic words have all four possibilities: high–high, high–low, low–high, and low–low.

In longer phonological words, such as verb and noun phrases, a high tone tends to persist until the final syllable, which, if it has a phonemic low tone, becomes falling (high–low). Low tones disappear between high tones, but their effect remains as a downstep. Rising tones (low–high) simplify to high after high (without triggering downstep) and to low before high.

Hwevísatɔ́,

/ɣʷèví-sà-tɔ́

[ɣʷèvísáꜜtɔ́‖

fish-sell-agent

é

é

é

s/he

ko

kò

kó

PERF

hɔ

xɔ̀

ꜜxɔ̂

buy

asón

àsɔ̃́

àsɔ̃́

crab

we.

wè/

wê‖]

two

Hwevísatɔ́, é ko hɔ asón we.

/ɣʷèví-sà-tɔ́ é kò xɔ̀ àsɔ̃́ wè/

[ɣʷèvísáꜜtɔ́‖ é kó ꜜxɔ̂ àsɔ̃́ wê‖]

fish-sell-agent s/he PERF buy crab two

"The fishmonger, she bought two crabs."

In Ouidah, a rising or falling tone is realized as a mid tone. For example, mǐ 'we, you', phonemically high-tone /bĩ́/ but phonetically rising because of the voiced consonant, is generally mid-tone [mĩ̄] in Ouidah.

Orthographies

Roman alphabet

The Fon alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the letters Ɖ/ɖ, Ɛ/ɛ, and Ɔ/ɔ, and the digraphs gb, hw, kp, ny, and xw.

Fon alphabet

Majuscule	A	B	C	D	Ɖ	E	Ɛ	F	G	GB	H	HW	I	J	K	KP	L	M	N	NY	O	Ɔ	P	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	XW	Y	Z
Minuscule	a	b	c	d	ɖ	e	ɛ	f	g	gb	h	hw	i	j	k	kp	l	m	n	ny	o	ɔ	p	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	xw	y	z
Sound (IPA)	a	b	t͡ɕ	d	ɖ	e	ɛ	f	ɡ	ɡb	ɣ	ɣʷ	i	d͡ʑ	k	kp	l	m	n	ɲ	o	ɔ	p	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	xʷ	j	z

Tone marking

Tones are marked as follows:

• Acute accent marks the rising tone: xó, dó
• Grave accent marks the falling tone: ɖò, akpàkpà
• Caron marks falling and rising tone: bǔ, bǐ
• Circumflex accent marks the rising and falling tone: côfù
• Macron marks the neutral tone: kān

Tones are fully marked in reference books, but not always marked in other writing. The tone marking is phonemic, and the actual pronunciation may be different according to the syllable's environment.

Gbékoun script

Table of Gbékoun script

Main article: Gbékoun script

Speakers in Benin also use a distinct script called Gbékoun that was invented by Togbédji Adigbè. It has 24 consonants and 9 vowels, as it is intended to transcribe all the languages of Benin.

Sample text

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Acɛ, susu kpo sisi ɖokpo ɔ kpo wɛ gbɛtɔ bi ɖo ɖò gbɛwiwa tɔn hwenu; ye ɖo linkpɔn bɔ ayi yetɔn mɛ kpe lo bɔ ye ɖo na do alɔ yeɖee ɖi nɔvinɔvi ɖɔhun.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Use

Radio programs in Fon are broadcast on ORTB channels.

Television programs in Fon are shown on the La Beninoise satellite TV channel.

French used to be the only language of education in Benin, but in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the government is experimenting with teaching some subjects in Benin schools in the country's local languages, among them Fon.

Machine translation efforts

There is an effort to create a machine translator for Fon (to and from French), by Bonaventure Dossou (from Benin) and Chris Emezue (from Nigeria). Their project is called FFR. It uses phrases from Jehovah's Witnesses sermons as well as other biblical phrases as the research corpus to train a Natural Language Processing (NLP) neural net model.

External links

• A Facebook application to use and learn the Fon language, developed by Jolome.com
• The first blog totally in Fongbe. An access to a Fongbe forum is given
• Journal of West African Languages: Articles on Fon
• Manuel dahoméen : grammaire, chrestomathie, dictionnaire français-dahoméen et dahoméen-français, 1894 by Maurice Delafosse at the Internet Archive (in French)