There are so many languages spoken in Togo! I live in a village where the majority of people are of the Kabye ethnicit,so the most common language I hear is Kabye. Kabye is also the most prominent language throughout the north. There are also Kotokoli, Losso and Peuhl speakers in my village. In southern Togo, Ewe is the dominant language. The local languages in Togo are mostly oral languages, and they were not traditionally written down. Recently, people have made an effort to create ways to write down these languages to help preserve stories and culture.
Throughout the country, people speak French, the official language. The French ruled over Togo as a colony from the end of the First World War until Togo’s independence in 1960. It can be a bit strange to have a colonizer’s language as the official language. But there are forty-four languages spoken in Togo! It’s useful to have a common language so everyone can speak to each other.
Togo uses the West African franc. The acronym for this money is C.F.A. Several other countries, such as our neighbor Benin, use the same currency, so when I traveled to Benin, I did not have to exchange money. But even though Benin is a neighboring country with the same currency, the prices for the same items were a little different.
