Akan languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twi language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Akan language(s) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the most famous Akan speaker. His name "Kofi" means he was a boy born on a Friday.

Akan languages are those languages belonging to the Kwa language family spoken in Ghana and the Côte d'Ivoire:

Agona
Ahafo
Akan
- Twi
  - Akuapem Twi
  - Asante Twi (Ashanti)
- Fante (Fanti, Mfantse)
Akyem (Akyem Bosome)
Andoh
Anyi
Asen
Attié
Baoulé
Brong
Chakosi
Dankyira
Guang
Kwahu
Nzema
Sefwi
Brong

Apart from Brong, these variants all have written forms, in the Roman alphabet.

Also, Akan is itself the name of a major Ghanaian language spoken comprising these dialects:

Twi - Both the Akuapem and Asante (Ashanti) dialects
Fante (Fanti, Mfantse)

The Bureau of Ghanian Languages has compiled a unified orthography of 20,000 words.

The adinkra symbols are old ideograms.

The language came to South America, notably Suriname, with the slaves. The descendants of escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname still use a form of this language, including the 'day name' custom of naming children the day of the week that they were born e.g. Kwasi (for a boy) or Kwasiba (girl) born on a Sunday. In Suriname also the Anansi spider stories are well known.

According to work done by P K Agbedor of CASAS, Mfantse and Twi (together known as Akan) belong to Cluster 1 of the speech forms of Ghana. Clusters are defined by the level of mutual intelligibility. The Abron(Bono) and Wasa dialects are considered part of this cluster.

Cluster 1 comprises:

Akan (Niger-Congo – Atlantic Congo – Volta Congo – Kwa – Nyo – Potou-Tano – Tano – Central)
Abron (Niger-Congo – Atlantic Congo – Volta Congo – Kwa – Nyo – Potou-Tano – Tano – Central – Akan)
Wasa (Niger-Congo – Atlantic Congo – Volta Congo – Kwa – Nyo – Potou-Tano – Tano – Central – Akan).

Cluster 1 may better be named r-Akan (mainly Twi, Fante, Akuapem, Akyem, Wasa, Bono, Asen, Akwamu, Kwahu spoken mainly in Ghana, parts of Togo) which do not explicitly have the letter “l” in their original proper use. On the other hand l-Akan, refers to the Akan cluster comprising Nzema, Baule, and other dialects spoken mainly in the Ivory Coast, whose use of the letter “r” in proper usage is very rare.