Ewe Alphabet

Ewe calls itself Eʋegbe, "the Ewe language", and its own name already shows one of the letters you will not find on an English keyboard. The alphabet has 30 single letters: A B D Ɖ E Ɛ F Ƒ G Ɣ H X I K L M N Ŋ O Ɔ P R S T U V Ʋ W Y Z, each with a capital and a small form. C, J and Q are not used. In the order given by Unicode's CLDR, each special letter comes straight after the plain letter it is built on, and X comes straight after H rather than near the end.

Five more sounds are written with two plain letters, digraphs that Ewe alphabet charts list as letters of their own: dz and ts (as in dzidzɔ, joy, and tsi, water), gb and kp, a g or k said together with a b or p in one stroke (as in akpe, thank you), and ny, the sound of Spanish ñ (as in nyɔnu, woman). With them the Ewe alphabet a to z counts 35 letters. They need no special characters, so the grid above has only the single letters.

What Ɖ ɖ, Ƒ ƒ, Ʋ ʋ, Ɣ ɣ, Ŋ ŋ, Ɛ ɛ and Ɔ ɔ do

Ɖ ɖ is a d made with the tip of the tongue curled further back than English d, as in ɖevi, child. Ƒ ƒ is an f blown between the two lips instead of lip and teeth, and Ʋ ʋ is the same for v. Ewe keeps them apart from plain f and v, so the people, Eʋe, and the number two, eve, differ only in that one letter. Ɣ ɣ is a soft g rubbed in the back of the throat, as in ɣe, sun, and X x is its voiceless partner, like the ch of Scottish loch. Ŋ ŋ is the ng of sing, and in Ewe it can begin a word: ŋdi, morning. Ɛ ɛ and Ɔ ɔ are the open vowels of bed and law, set apart from the closer e and o.

Most of these letters come from the International Phonetic Alphabet, where they stand for the same sounds, and several are shared with Ewe's neighbours: Ɛ, Ɔ and Ŋ with Ga, Ɛ and Ɔ with Akan, Ɖ with Fon. Watch the look-alikes when you copy them: the capital Ɖ looks exactly like Croatian Đ and Icelandic Ð but is a different character, Ɛ is not the Greek epsilon ε, Ɣ is not the Greek gamma γ, and ʋ is not the Greek upsilon υ. A search engine or a spell checker treats them as different letters.

Tone marks and nasal vowels: á à ã ẽ ɛ̃ ɔ̃

Ewe is a tonal language: the pitch of a syllable can change the meaning of a word. Where the spelling has to show it, as in dictionaries, primers and texts for learners, an acute accent marks a high tone (á é í ó ú) and a grave accent a low tone (à è ì ò ù). Everyday writing usually leaves tone unmarked and lets the context decide, apart from a few short words such as the pronoun wò, you.

The tilde marks a nasal vowel, said partly through the nose, and it is written much more often: ẽ, yes, fiẽ, evening, lɔ̃, to love. Unicode has single characters for ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ, but not for ɛ and ɔ with accents or a tilde. To write ɛ̃, ɔ̃, ɛ́ or ɔ̀, type the letter and then a combining mark from the grid; the two join into one letter on screen.

How to type Ewe letters on a phone, in Word and in HTML

On a phone, the easiest way is an Ewe keyboard: free keyboard apps for Ewe exist for Android and iPhone, with ɖ, ƒ, ɣ, ŋ, ɔ, ɛ and ʋ on their own keys or under the plain letters. On a computer, a free keyboard layout that covers Ewe, for example one from Keyman, works in every program. Otherwise copy the letters from the grid above.

In Microsoft Word on Windows, type the code and press Alt+X straight after it: 0256 ɖ, 0189 Ɖ, 0192 ƒ, 0191 Ƒ, 028B ʋ, 01B2 Ʋ, 0263 ɣ, 0194 Ɣ, 014B ŋ, 014A Ŋ, 025B ɛ, 0190 Ɛ, 0254 ɔ, 0186 Ɔ, 0303 for a combining tilde and 20B5 for the cedi ₵. The small ƒ is also on the old Windows Alt codes, Alt+0131 on the number pad, because it doubled as the florin sign. On a Mac, switch to the Unicode Hex Input layout and hold Option while typing the same codes.

In HTML, write ɖ ɖ, Ɖ Ɖ, ƒ ƒ, Ƒ Ƒ, ʋ ʋ, Ʋ Ʋ, ɣ ɣ, Ɣ Ɣ, ŋ ŋ, Ŋ Ŋ, ɛ ɛ, Ɛ Ɛ, ɔ ɔ and Ɔ Ɔ. Most system fonts have all of them; decorative fonts often do not, and then the browser borrows the letter from another typeface.

Where the Ewe language is spoken

Ewe has roughly 5 to 5.5 million speakers: around 3.8 million in Ghana, above all in the Volta Region around Ho, Hohoe, Keta and Aflao, and around 1.7 million in southern Togo, from Lomé to Kpalimé and Notsé. Ewe is one of the Ghanaian languages taught in schools, and in Togo it is one of the two national languages, with Kabiyè, alongside French. Anlo Ewe oral tradition says their ancestors fled Notsé in Togo; the Hogbetsotso festival in Anloga commemorates that story.

Ewe belongs to the Gbe languages of the Kwa branch of Niger–Congo; its closest relatives are Fon in Benin and Gen (Mina), the market language of Lomé. For Ewe's neighbours see the Akan (Twi), Ga, Adangme and Fon collections, the English and French ones for the official languages of Ghana and Togo, and the Ghana and Togo pages for flags, currency and emoji.