Avatime

AVATIME

Name of Language- Avatime

Ethnologue Code: [avn]

Population: 24,000 (2003).

Alternative Name: Afatime, Sia, Sideme, Si-ya

Classification: Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, Kwa

Dialects: None known. Reportedly similar to Nyangbo [nyb] and Tafi [tcd].

Location: Volta region: center at Amedzofe.

Avatime, also known as Afatime, Sideme, or Sia, is a Kwa language of the Avatime (self designation: Kedone (m.sg.)) people of eastern Ghana. The Avatime live primarily in the seven towns and villages of Amedzofe, Vane, Gbadzeme, Dzokpe, Biakpe, Dzogbefeme, and Fume.

GILLBT Contact Persons

1. Project Cordinators

Divine Mununkum Phone: 0243538317/0203467290

Email address: mununkum2020@yahoo.coma

2. Kwabina Adjei

3. Committee Chairperson

A brief history of the Avatime Literacy and Bible Translation Project

Before the 1980’s precisely, since 1973, Lynne Brydon, a British anthropologist stayed at Amedzofe and researched the history of the people of Avatime. She returned home to Britain, having learnt the Avatime language fluently, and urged the British SIL group to take up the translation of the New Testament in the Avatime language.

Dr. J. A. Ring of the Wycliffe Bible Translators, U.S.A conducted a language survey in 1987on behalf of the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT). The survey covered the language cluster of the central Volta Region consisting of Avatime, Logba, Tafi and Nyagbo traditional areas. Their Ewe comprehension was high above 85% according to the survey. Ten years later, Ring revisited these communities and discovered that their understanding of the Ewe language had dropped considerably.