Wobé language
| Wobé | |
|---|---|
| Northern Wèè | |
| Native to | Ivory Coast |
Native speakers |
(160,000 cited 1993) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wob |
| Glottolog | weno1238 |
Wobé (Ouobe) is a Kru language spoken in Ivory Coast. It is one of several languages in a dialect continuum called Wèè (Wɛɛ).
Tone
Wobé is known for claims that it has the largest number of tones (fourteen) of any language in the world. However, other researchers has not confirmed this, many of whom believe that some of these will turn out to be sequences of tones or prosodic effects, though the Wèè languages in general do have extraordinarily large tone systems.
The fourteen posited tones are:
| IPA | ˥ | ˦ | ˧ | ˨ | ˧˥ | ˧˦ | ˨˥ | ˨˦ | ˨˧ | ˥˩ | ˦˩ | ˧˩ | ˨˩ | ˨˧˩ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B&L tone numbers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 31 | 32 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 435 |
| Newman adjustment | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 20 | 21 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 04 | 14 | 24 | 34 | 324 |
Numerals
Wobe has a quinary, decimal system, and it is one of the only two Kru languages which have adopted the decimal system.