Language in Ghana
Major Language: TWI (with four dialects: Akuapem, Akyem, Kwawu &
Asante). There are 45 other local languages. Official language: English
Twi
Twi is the most important language of Ghana. There are four dialects:
Akuapem, Akyem, Kwawu & Asante. Together with the closely related Fanti,
it is spoken by about 6 million people in the forest area west of the Volta River.
It is spoken by two-thirds of the people of Ghana.
Twi belongs to the Kwa subgroup of the Niger-Congo family.
All dialects of Twi are mutually intelligible. They are written by a common
script developed by the Bureau of Ghana Languages.
Twi is a tone language.
There are three main tones in Twi - high, middle and low. The tones are
phonemic.
Akan Twi is a tone language, which means that word distinction is determined
not only by vowels and consonants, but also by the pitch on which each
syllable is pronounced. For example,
(high-high) 'good',
(low-high)
'father', and
(low-low) 'fan' are separate words that differ only in tone.
Additionally, in Akan tone also distinguishes certain grammatical categories
such as the habitual* and stative** forms of verbs.
'she wears a dress'
'she has on a dress'
Habitual verbs
Stative verbs
* Habitual form: A verb aspect indicating something done, etc. consistently or habitually.
** Stative form: A verb aspect indicating something done, etc. at one point in time.
Syntax
In Twi, it is common to have a consecutive sequence of verbs in one
sentence. These verbs are called serial verbs. For example:
I'll come will-receive play
When the sentence containing serial verbs is negative, all verbs in the
sentence get a negative prefix n-. For example:
Me-n-tumi n-sre
n-k
I-not-can not-get-up not-go
'I cannot get up and go'.
EMASS 12/05
Twi Alphabet and pronunciation
EMASS 12/05
Example of Twi script:
A cow was grazing in a field of grass.
This field was near a pond which was full of frogs.
When the frogs saw him some of them exclaimed, "This fellow is extremely
big."
Just as they said this, one of the frogs remarked, "I can blow myself up as big
as this cow."
No sooner had he said it, than he began to blow himself up, and he went on
blowing until he burst.
EMASS 12/05