Attié language

Attié
Native to	Ivory Coast
Ethnicity	Attie people
Native speakers	642,000 (2017)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta–Congo Kwa Attié
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ati
Glottolog	atti1239

Attié (Akie, Akye, Atche, Atie, Atshe) is a language of uncertain classification within the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo family. It is spoken by perhaps half a million people in Ivory Coast.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio- velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	[n]	[ɲ]	[ŋ]	[ŋw]
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c	k	k͡p
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ	ɡ͡b
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʃ
	voiced		(d͡z)	d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ			h
	voiced	v	z
Approximant				j		w
Lateral			l
Trill			(r)

• /z/ may also be heard as an affricate [d͡z] in free variation among speakers.
• /l/ may also be heard as [r] when following consonants.
• Nasal sounds [n, ɲ, ŋ~ŋw] only occur as a result of sounds /l, j, w/ occurring in nasal positions when preceding or following nasal vowels.
• /h/ in nasal positions occurs as [h̃].
• /w/ may be realized as labio-palatal [ɥ] when occurring after palatal sounds /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ɟ/.

Vowels

Oral vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
High-mid	e	ɨ	o
Low-mid	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Low		a

Sounds /ɨ, ə/ are phonetically heard as [ɨ̞, ɘ] or [ə̞, ɜ].

Nasal vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	ĩ		ũ
Low-mid	ɛ̃	ə̃	ɔ̃
Low		ã

Writing system

Attié Alphabet

a	an	b	c	d	dzh	e	ë	ën	ɛ
ɛn	f	g	gb	h	i	in	j	k	kp
l	m	n	o	ö	ɔ	ɔn	p	r	s
sh	t	ts	tsh	u	un	v	w	y	z

A vowel followed by <n> indicates nasalisation.

Tones are indicated with a diacritic before or after the syllable :

Tone notation

Tone	Sign	Writing	Example	Translation
Low	hyphen before syllable	˗	˗ka	thing
Mid	nothing	∅	wu	acheke
High	apostrophe	ʼ	’mi	mouth
Very high	double apostrophe	ˮ	ˮvin	children
Falling	hyphen after syllable	˗	be˗	pestle

References

Works cited

• Hood, Elizabeth; Kouachi, Acho Jacob; Lojenga, Constance Kutsch (1984). Attié, dialecte naindin. Abidjan: Les Nouvelles éditions africaines. ISBN 978-2-7236-0680-6.