Impact of Standardisation and Vehicularization: The case of Tɔŋúgbe in South-Eastern Ghana and Fula (Adamawa) in Northern Cameroon

This paper investigates the impacts of standardisation and vehicularizationon linguistic diversity. We demonstrate in the light of TÉ" Latin small letter Engúgbe in south-eastern Ghana and vehicular Fula in Northern Cameroon that natural languages are social objects in motion, which can be institutionally and/or socially subjected to promotion or demotion. In the first part, we show that TÉ" Latin small letter Engúgbe, one of the dialects of the Ewe language, brings to the fore data that is not captured by standard Ewe even though such data is critical to the understanding and study of not just the Ewe language, but also, the whole Gbelanguage cluster. We concentrate on the definite article in the dialect and demonstrate that, contrary to what pertains in standard Ewe, NP determination with the definite article in TÉ" Latin small letter Engúgbe is an intersection between syntax and phonology. In the second part we argue that vehicularizationas in the case of Fula Adamawa, appears to be a double-egged sword which on one hand promotes a language or a variety among others and, on the other hand, causes the demotion of minority languages or varieties.