Anii language

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The Anii is a Guan language (sometimes called Bassila or Baseca, also known as Oji-Ouji, Ouinji-Ouinji, Winji-Winji, though this is derogatory) is spoken in Benin, and central-eastern Togo and central eastern Ghana by Makכ-Makua or Bakכ-Bakua clan. It is part of the geographic group of Ghana Togo Mountain languages (formerly known as the Togorestsprachen or Togo Remnant languages) of the Kwa branch of Niger–Congo.

There are four major dialect groups in Anii, which are quite different from each other, even to the point that some of the dialects are not mutually intelligible.^[2] These differences may include variation in phonology (including tonology), lexicon, syntax, and semantics. There are significant differences from village to village within groups, particularly regarding pronunciation.

The name "Anii" was chosen in May 1979 by the Anii people as the official name for the language^[3] because it is a word that is common to all the Anii dialects. It is an interjection meaning roughly ‘do you hear?’, or ‘do you understand?’ Some of the older names have colonial or derogatory connotations and should no longer be used, and just be kept for reference.^[2]

Like other languages of the Central-Togo group, Anii has a robust system of noun classes, contrasting with the reduced or absent systems of surrounding languages.^[4] It also has a strong system of vowel harmony based on the feature [ATR] (Advanced Tongue Root). This means that half of the vowels are pronounced with the root of the tongue pushed forwards, and half are not. Every word that is not a compound word has vowels that match for this feature. That is, all non-compound words have only vowels with the [ATR] feature, or vowels without it—there is no mixing. The Bassila dialect, on which the most linguistic research has been done, has two phonological tone levels, low and high, and exhibits both grammatical and lexical tone.