Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T20:38:58.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tone and tune: the evidence for Northern Ewe music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

V. Kofi Agawu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the most intriguing features of most African languages is that of tone, by which variations in speech tone generate different meanings (Pike, 1948, offers a valuable introduction to this subject and includes an extensive bibliography; Fromkin, 1972, is a comprehensive evaluation of specialised studies). In the Ewe language, for example, the word to [H] pronounced with a high tone means ‘ear’, as in To le venye (HLMM), ‘I have an earache.’ To can also mean ‘through’, Meto akonta me [MHLHML], ‘I have gone through the accounts.’ But as soon as the high tone is replaced by a low one the meaning of the word changes drastically: to [L] means ‘thick’ as in Dzogbo la to [LHHL], ‘The porridge is thick’. Similarly, mi [H] is a pronoun for the first person plural (Mieto adegbe, ‘We are on the way to the hunt’). The same word refers to ‘faeces’ as in [HL], ‘goat's faeces’. A shift of tone from high to low results in a change of meaning. Mi [L] is a pronoun for the second person plural (Mile tsi [LLM], ‘You (should) take a bath’); it also means ‘swallow’ (mi amatsi, ‘swallow [or take] the medicine’). The phenomenon is not restricted to monosyllables. Kuku [HH] refers to a ‘hat’ (Meɖe kuku na wo, ‘I remove your hat,’ which is a figurative way of saying ‘I beg you’). Kuku [LH] on the other hand refers to ‘death’. Asi [LH] is the word for ‘hand’, while asi [LM] denotes ‘market’. Tone is operative on a number of levels within the syntagmatic chain: on the level of syllable, word, phrase and sentence. Furthermore, a number of constraints—syntactic, international or natural factors—influence the disposition of speech tones (consult Ansre, 1961, for information about Ewe tone and Dakubu, 1988, for the most recent study of this and other aspects of Ghanaian languages).

Résumé

Ton de la parole et ton musical: l'évidence avec la musique de la région du Ewe Septentrional

L'influence du ton de la parole sur la mélodie musicale est un sujet qui a fasciné bon nombre d'ethnomusicologues. De la littérature consacreé à l'Afrique de l'Ouest se dégage l'assomption qu'un mot chanté doit, pour conserver tout son sens, suivre les variations du ton de la parole. Un certain nombre de ces études sont done consacrées aux cas où il n'existe pas de correspondance entre le ton de la parole et le ton musical. Cet article conteste la validité et l'utilité du rapport correspondance-noncorrespondance, en soutenant que le sens du mot n'est pas perdu si le ton de la parole et le ton musical different et que les facteurs déterminants de la structure musicale reposent en fait sur des caractères intramusicaux plutôt que linguistiques. La mélodie musicale peut suivre les caractères phonologiques du texte mais ce n'est pas obligatoire. Les exemples sont tirés de la région du Ewe Septentrional de Ghana mais les résultats de l'étude pourraient s'appliquer à d'autres régions.

Type
Tone and tune
Information
Africa , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , April 1988 , pp. 127 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agawu, V. Kofi. 1987. ‘The rhythmic structure of West African music’, Journal of Musicology, 7 (3): 400–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansre, Gilbert. 1961. The Tonal Structure of Ewe, Hartford Studies in Linguistics, 1. Hartford, Conn.: Hartford Seminary Foundation.Google Scholar
Blacking, John. 1970. ‘Tonal organisation in the music of two Venda initiation schools’, Ethnomusicology, 14 (1): 1–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dakubu, M. E. Kropp. 1988. The Languages of Ghana. London: Kegan Paul International for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Dakubu, M. E. Kropp, and Reed, Cathleen. 1985. ‘Language and music in the Luna drumming of Dagbon: a preliminary study’, Papers in Ghanaian Linguistics. No. 5, 20–31. Legon: Institute of African Studies.Google Scholar
Ekwueme, Lazarus N. 1973. ‘African music in Christian liturgy: the Igbo experiment’, African Music, 5 (3): 12–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekwueme, Lazarus N. 1974. ‘Linguistic determinants of some Igbo musical properties’, Journal of African Studies, 1 (3): 335–53.Google Scholar
Fiagbedzi, N. 1979. Religious Music Traditions in Africa: a critical evaluation of contemporary problems and challenges. Accra: Ghana Universities Press.Google Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. 1972. ‘Tone features and tone rules’, Studies in African Linguistics, 3 (1): 47–76.Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie. 1974. ‘Universals of downdrift: their phonetic basis and significance for a theory of tone’, Studies in African Linguistics, Supplement 5, 169–83.Google Scholar
Jones, A. M. 1959. Studies in African Music. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, A. M. 1976. ‘Swahili epic poetry: a musical study’, African Music, 5 (4): 105–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leben, William R. 1983. ‘On the correspondence between linguistic tone and musical melody’, Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 148–54.Google Scholar
Nketia, Kwabena. 1962. African Music in Ghana. Evanston, III.: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Nketia, Kwabena. 1974. The Music of Africa. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Pike, Kenneth L. 1948. Tone Languages. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Pike, Kenneth L. 1982. ‘Tune and tone: generalized syntagmatic pitch patterns constrained by particular lexical patterns’, Journal of West African Languages, 12 (2): 22–41.Google Scholar
Richards, Paul. 1972. ‘A quantitative analysis of the relationship between language tone and melody in a Hausa song’, African Language Studies, 13: 137–61.Google Scholar
Rycroft, David K. 1983. ‘The relationships between speech-tone and melody in southern African music’, South African Music Encyclopedia, ed. Malan, J. P., vol. 2, 301–14. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Marius. 1943/1944. ‘Phonetische und metrische Korrelationen bei gesprochenen und gesungenen Ewe-Texten’, Archiv fur Vergleichende Phonetik, 7 (1/2): 1–6.Google Scholar
Schneider, Marius 1950. ‘La relation entre la mélodie et la langage dans la musique chinoise’, Anuario Musicale, 5: 62–3.Google Scholar
Schneider, Marius 1961. ‘Tone and tune in West African music’, Ethnomusicology, 5 (3): 204–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sowande, Fela. 1967. ‘The Catholic Church and the Tone-languages of Nigeria’, unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Sprigge, R. G. S. 1968. ‘A song from Eweland's Adangbe: notes and queries’, Ghana Notes and Queries, 10: 23–8.Google Scholar
Ward, W. E. F. 1927. ‘Music in the Gold Coast’, Gold Coast Review, 3 (2): 199–223.Google Scholar
Westermann, Diedrich, and Bryan, M. A.. 1952. The Languages of West Africa. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Yung, Bell. 1983. ‘Creative process in Cantonese opera, I, The role of linguistic tones’, Ethnomttsicology, 27 (1): 29–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar