A sociolinguistic survey of the Anii-Akpe language area

This survey report presents a sociolinguistic survey conducted in the Anii-Akpe speech communities (Kwa language family) of Benin and Togo. The survey was designed to help SIL Togo/Benin administrators determine the involvement of SIL in these language communities.

Through the elicitation of wordlists, as well as the administration of community and individual interviews, the survey researchers collected data concerning tested and reported levels of dialect intercomprehension, language use in various domains both public and private, language attitudes toward both written and oral forms of Anii, reported levels of bilingualism in various languages, as well as education and literacy levels.

The results are given for each of the above-mentioned categories, with emphasis given to areas which provided insights into both the extent of dialect intercomprehension and the level of community interest in language development.

Through a combination of a sufficient percentage of lexical similarity and a high level of tested comprehension, the results show that Anii and Akpe are one language. There are no indications of language shift. Attitudes toward the development of Anii are positive.