Język Ewe - Ewe language - Eʋegbe

Ewe texts collection

This is the main page of our small collection of texts written in Ewe. At the momen all of them are accompanied by loose English translations. We are planning to include a word-to-word translation, grammatical commentaries and audio recordings at nearest opportunity. Djoubogbe Kossi Afoutou is the author of all the texts and translations as they appear on following pages

Personal introduction

Djoubogbe has written a couple of paragraphs about himself. English translation is provided. This is the first text we plan to comment on and record.

Djoubogbe's grandfather

In this text Djoubogbe writes about his grandfather, Kodzovi Akpan Afoutou, who converted from a Vodu cult into Catholicism and became a widely-known writer of religious songs. The text includes one of the worship songs written by him.

Ewe weekday names

Ewe names attached to the day of the week the child was born have great symbolic significance and their importance is one of the hallmarks of the culture of Ewe and neighbouring peoples

Children named by foreigners

A description of an interesting Ewe custom where a newborn baby is left to be found and named by a foreigner so that the evil spirits will not be able to recognize it.

Marriage in Ewe tradition

A text about traditional Ewe marriage customs which apparently are no longer universally accepted

Funeral ceremony in Ewe tradition

Traditional Ewe funeral customs in a detailed description