Akan (language)

Akan (), or Twi-Fante, is the most populous language of Ghana, and the principal native language of the Akan people, spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana. About 80% of Ghana's population speak Akan as a first or second language, and about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers. The Bono dialect is also spoken across the border in Ivory Coast.

Three dialects were developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies: Asante and Akuapem, collectively known as Twi, and Fante. Despite being mutually intelligible, they were inaccessible in written form to speakers of the other standards until the Akan Orthography Committee (AOC)'s development of a common Akan orthography in 1978, based mainly on Akuapem dialect.
As the first Akan variety to be used for Bible translation, Akuapem had become the prestige dialect.

With the Atlantic slave trade, Akan languages were introduced to the Caribbean and South America, notably in Suriname, spoken by the Ndyuka, and in Jamaica, spoken by the Jamaican Maroons, also known as the Coromantee. The cultures of the descendants of escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname and the Maroons in Jamaica still retain Akan influences, including the Akan naming practice of naming children after the day of the week on which they are born, e.g. Akwasi/Kwasi for a boy or Akosua for a girl born on a Sunday. In Jamaica and Suriname, the ''Anansi'' spider stories are still well-known.The Brong (Bono) dialect of Akan” by Florence Abena Dolphyne University of Ghana, Legon 1979.

Name

The language was originally referred to by local designations such as 'Twi' (; ), ' Fante' and ' Brong'. After independence, the national language commission adopted 'Akan', a name that had been used for all the languages spoken by the Akan people, which included Twi-Fante and the Bia languages, as the name for Twi-Fante specifically. The broader scope was renamed the Central Tano languages to disambiguate. However, many sources still refer to the Central Tano languages as 'Akan'.

History

In history, the Akans who live in Ghana migrated in successive waves between the 11th and 18th centuries. Others inhabit the eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire and parts of Togo. They migrated from the north to occupy the forest and coastal areas in the south in the 13th century. The Akans have a strong oral history tradition of their past and they're also known in the art history world for symbolic artifacts of wood, metal and terracotta. Their cultural ideas are expressed in stories and proverbs and also in designs such as symbols used in carvings and on clothes. The cultural and historic nature of the Akans in Ghana makes it an area of research for various disciplines such as folklore, literary studies, linguistics, anthropology and history.

Dialects

Akan is a dialect continuum that is closely related to the Bia languages, the other Central Tano languages spoken by the Akan people. The relationships of the major Akan dialects are as follows:

Brong and Wasa have limited mutual intelligibility with each other, and so are separate languages by that standard. Neighboring Brong and Asante are mutually intelligible, though geographically more distant Brong and Fante are less so.
Indeed, 'a Fante-speaker will be right in looking on Bron onoas a different language.'

Phonology

The Akan dialects contain extensive palatalization, vowel harmony, and tone terracing.

Consonants

Before front vowels, all Asante consonants are palatalized (or labio-palatalized), and the stops are to some extent affricated. The allophones of are quite complex. In the table below, palatalized allophones which involve more than minor phonetic palatalization are specified, in the context of the vowel . These sounds do occur before other vowels, such as , though in most cases not commonly.

In Asante, followed by a vowel is pronounced , but in Akuapem it remains . The sequence is pronounced .

A word final can be heard as a glottal stop . There is also a nasalization of and of as and , when occurring before nasal vowels.

The transcriptions in the tables below are in the order /phonemic/, phonetic]. Note that orthographic is ambiguous; in textbooks, = may be distinguished from with a diacritic: '. Likewise, velar () may be transcribed '. Orthographic is palatalized .

Vowels

The Akan dialects have fourteen to fifteen vowels: four to five "tense" vowels (advanced tongue root; +ATR or -RTR), five "lax" vowels (retracted tongue root, +RTR or -ATR), which are not entirely contrastively represented by the seven-vowel orthography, and five nasal vowels, which are not represented at all. All fourteen were distinguished in the Gold Coast alphabet of the colonial era. A tongue-root distinction in orthographic ''a'' is only found in some subdialects of Fante, but not in the literary form; in Asante and Akuapem there are harmonic allophones of , but neither is ATR. The two vowels written ''e'' ( and ) and ''o'' ( and ) are often not distinguished in pronunciation.

Tongue root harmony

Akan vowels engage in a form of vowel harmony with the root of the tongue.
# +RTR vowels followed by the -RTR non-mid vowels /i a u/ become -RTR. This is generally reflected in the orthography: That is, orthographic ' become ''i e a o u''. However, it is no longer reflected in the case of subject and possessive pronouns, giving them a consistent spelling. This rule takes precedence over the next one.
# After the +RTR non-high vowels /e̙ a̙ o̙/, -RTR mid vowels /e o/ become +RTR high vowels /i̙ u̙/. This is not reflected in the orthography, for both sets of vowels are spelled , and in many dialects this rule does not apply, for these vowels have merged.

Tones

Akan has three phonemic tones, ''high'' (/H/), ''mid'' (/M/), and ''low'' (/L/). Initial syllable may only be ''high'' or ''low''.

Tone terracing

The phonetic pitch of the three tones depends on their environment, often being lowered after other tones, producing a steady decline known as tone terracing.

/H/ tones have the same pitch as a preceding /H/ or /M/ tone within the same tonic phrase, whereas /M/ tones have a lower pitch. That is, the sequences /HH/ and /MH/ have a level pitch, whereas the sequences /HM/ and /MM/ have a falling pitch. /H/ is lowered (downstepped) after a /L/.

/L/ is the default tone, which emerges in situations such as reduplicated prefixes. It is always at bottom of the speaker's pitch range, except in the sequence /HLH/, in which case it is raised in pitch but the final /H/ is still lowered. Thus /HMH/ and /HLH/ are pronounced with distinct but very similar pitches.

After the first "prominent" syllable of a clause, usually the first high tone, there is a downstep. This syllable is usually stressed.

Morphology

Formation of plural nouns

Akan historically employed a noun class system similar to that of Bantu languages. Although this system is now largely defunct, remnants of it persist in modern Akan plural formation, particularly through prefixes and suffixes. The current pluralisation system blends fossilised class prefixes with newer morphological strategies, especially for human nouns. Notably, human nouns have preserved more elements of the old system than non-human nouns and can employ multiple plural-marking strategies simultaneously.

Modern Akan employs several strategies for plural formation, representing a transition from its historical purely prefixal system to a mixed system using both prefixes and suffixes. These strategies vary based on semantic categories, with human nouns showing particularly complex patterns.

Prefixal plural formation

Many Akan nouns form their plurals through the addition or replacement of nasal prefixes (, ), reflecting remnants of the old noun class system.

In this process, the original class prefix (typically ) is replaced by a homorganic nasal prefix that assimilates to the initial consonant of the root word. For example, initial becomes and becomes in plural forms.

Suffixal plural formation

A relatively newer morphological development involves using plural suffixes, primarily for human and agentive nouns. This development is particularly significant as it shows how Akan is evolving from its historical prefix-based system. Human nouns demonstrate the most complex plural marking, often combining both old prefixal and new suffixal strategies — a pattern that highlights their special status in the language's grammatical system.

; With
This suffix is used primarily for kinship and social role terms.

; With
This suffix is used with profession- or agent-based nouns.

In some cases, both a prefix and a suffix are used for pluralisation, especially with human nouns (e.g., → ). This double marking represents a unique development in Akan's plural system, where human nouns have not only preserved elements of the old class system but have also incorporated new morphological strategies, resulting in a more complex marking pattern than non-human nouns.

Invariant nouns

Certain Akan nouns remain unchanged in the plural, representing another way the historical noun class system has been simplified. While human nouns have developed complex plural marking strategies, these invariant nouns — including mass nouns and inherently plural items — have moved in the opposite direction by eliminating plural marking entirely.

Historical noun classes

Akan originally featured a more extensive system of noun classes marked by singular/plural prefixes. These may be reconstructed as follows:

Over time, this class system has undergone morphological decay. Modern Akan lacks productive class agreement between nouns and adjectives or verbs, and many prefixes have become fossilised elements perceived as part of the noun stem.

Orthography

The letters C, J, Q, V, X and Z are also used, but only in loanwords.

Literature

The Akan languages have a rich literature in proverbs, folktales, and traditional drama, as well as a new literature in dramas, short stories, and novels.Nina Pawlak, “Akan Folk Literature and the Beginning of Writing in Twi,” ''Literatures in African Languages: Theoretical Issues and Sample Surveys'' by B. W. Andrzejewski and S. Pilaszewicz, 128-157 (Cambridge University Press, 2010). This literature began to be documented in written form in the late 1800s. Later, Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia collected a number of proverbs and folktales, including ''Funeral Dirges of the Akan People'' (1969), ''Folk Songs of Ghana'' (1963), and ''Akan Poetry'' (1958). Some of the important authors in the language are A. A. Opoku (dramatist), E. J. Osew (dramatist), K. E. Owusu (novelist), and R. A. Tabi (dramatist and novelist). The Bureau of Ghana Languages has been unable to continue printing novels in the language, and the following are out of print: ''Obreguo, Okrabiri, Afrakoma, Obeede, Fia Tsatsala, ''and ''Ku Di Fo Nanawu''.

Education

Primary

In 1978 the AOC established a common orthography for all of Akan, which is used as the medium of instruction in primary school. The Akan language is recognized for literacy, from at least the lower primary level (primary 1–3).

University

Akan languages are studied at several major universities in the United States, including Ohio University, Ohio State University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, Boston University, Indiana University, University of Michigan, and The University of Florida. Akan has been a regular African language of study in the annual Summer Cooperative African Languages Institute (SCALI) program. The Akan language is studied in these universities as a bachelor or masters program.

Vocabulary

Common phrases

Placenames

System of given names

The Akan peoples use a common Akan (Ghana) naming system of giving the first name to a child, based on the day of the week that the child was born. Almost all the tribes and clans in Ghana have a similar custom.

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links

English-Tshi (Asante) : a dictionary = Enyiresi-Twi nsem-asekyere-nhõma (1909)
Evangelische Missionsgesellschaft in Basel

Akan Language Resources

Journal of West African Languages: Akan

My First Akan Dictionary
Online Akan (Twi, Fanti) Dictionary

Twi Word of the Day and Articles

Akan Language Resources

The Bible in Twi

The Quran in Twi Language



Watch Twi Music Videos



Open Twi Project
a project to bring Asante to software.
Literature and articles in Ahanta
Literature and articles in Ahanta dialect.

{{Authority control

Central Tano languages
Languages of Ghana
Akan people