Wobé language
Wobé is an indigenous Kru language spoken in Ivory Coast. It is one of several languages in a dialect continuum called Wèè .
Phonology
Typical of Western Kru languages, Wobé has sixteen vowel phonemes, with nine oral vowels and seven nasal vowels, and seventeen consonant phonemes. Wobé words tend not to have diphthongs, but rather the three vowels in a native non-compound word are pronounced separately.Tone
Wobé is known for claims that it has the largest number of tones of any language in the world. However, other researchers have not confirmed this, and many of them believe that some of these will turn out to be sequences of tones or prosodic effects, though the Wèè languages in general do have extraordinarily large tone systems.The fourteen posited tones are:
| IPA | ||||||||||||||
| B&L tone numbers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 31 | 32 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 435 |
| Newman adjustment | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 20 | 21 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 04 | 14 | 24 | 34 | 324 |