Twi (; ) is the common name of the
Akan literary language of
Asante and
Akuapem.
Effectively, it is a synonym for 'Akan' that is not used by the
Fante people
The modern Mfantsefo or Fante ("Fanti" is an older spelling) confederacy is a combination of Akan people and aboriginal Guan people. The Fante people are mainly located in the Central and Western regions of Ghana, occupying the forest and coast ...
. It is not a linguistic grouping, but more of a common name used by inland Akans as Akuapem Twi is more closely related to the
Fante dialects than it is to Asante Twi. Aside from the
Fante, other Akan groups such as the
Nzema,
Ahanta,
Chakossi,
Sefwi, and
Baoulé, all classified under the Akan Bia languages, do not use Twi as the name of their languages.
Twi generally subsumes the following Akan tongues: Ahafo,
Akuapem,
Akyem,
Asante,
Assin,
Bono,
Denkyira and
Kwawu, which have about 4.4 million speakers in southern and central
Ghana
Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...
.
References
External links
*
Language resourcesat LangMedia (Five College Center for World Languages)
Bibliography of structural properties of the Twi languageat WALS Online (The World Atlas of Language Structures)
Akuapem Twi to English Parallel Text Dataset
{{Authority control
Ashanti people
Akan language
Languages of Ghana