Guéré (Gere), also called Wè (Wee), is a Kru language spoken by over 300,000 people in the Dix-Huit Montagnes and Moyen-Cavally regions of Ivory Coast.
The phonology of Guere (here the Zagna dialect of Central Guere / Southern Wè)[2] is briefly sketched out below.
The consonant phonemes are as follows:
Allophones of some of these phonemes include:
In addition, while the nasal consonants /m, n/ and contrast with /ɓ/ and /l/ before oral vowels, and are thus separate phonemes, before nasal vowels only the nasal consonants occur. /ɓ/ and /l/ do not occur before nasal vowels, suggesting that historically a phonemic merger between these sounds and the nasals /m, n/ may have occurred in this position.
Like many West African languages, Guere makes use of a contrast between vowels with advanced tongue root and those with retracted tongue root. In addition, nasal vowels contrast phonemically with oral vowels.
Guere is a tonal language and contrasts ten tones:
