Ga language

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Ga
Gã 
Pronunciation: IPA: /ɡã/
Spoken in: South-eastern Ghana, around Accra
Total speakers: 600,000 (SIL 2004)
Language family: Niger-Congo
 Atlantic-Congo
  Volta-Congo
   Kwa
    Nyo
     Ga-Dangme
      Ga 
Writing system: Latin alphabet (Ga variant) 
Official status
Official language of: Ghana
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: gaa
ISO 639-3: gaa
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

The Ga language is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. It has a phonemic distinction between 3 vowel lengths.

Contents

[edit] Classification

Ga is a Kwa language, part of the Niger-Congo family. It is very closely related to Adangme, and together they form the Ga-Dangme branch within Kwa.

[edit] Geographic distribution

Ga is spoken in south-eastern Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. It has relatively little dialectal variation. Although English is the official language of Ghana, Ga is one of 16 languages which the Bureau of Ghana Languages publishes material in.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Consonants

Ga has 31 consonant phonemes.

  • [ŋʷ] is an allophone of /w/ which occurs before nasals and is represented with its own digraph in writing.
  • /l/ may be realised as [r] when between a consonant and vowel
  • /j/ has an allophone [ɲ] before nasal vowels
Consonant phonemes
  Bilabial Labio-
dental		 Dental Postalveolar
and palatal		 Velar Labial-
velar		 Glottal
Plain Labialized Plain Lab. Plain Lab.
Plosives and affricates p b     t d ʧ ʤ ʧʷ ʤʷ k ɡ kʷ ɡʷ kp ɡb    
Nasals   m       n   ɲ       ŋ       ŋm        
Fricatives     f v s z ʃ   ʃʷ               h   hʷ  
Approximants               j   jʷ           w        
Lateral approximant           l                            

[edit] Vowels

Ga has 7 oral vowels and 5 nasal vowels. All of the vowels have 3 different vowel lengths: short, long or extra long (used in the simple future and the simple past negative forms).

Monophthongs Front Central Back
Close i   u
Close-mid e   o
Open-mid ɛ   ɔ
Open   a  
Monophthongs Front Central Back
Close ĩ   ũ
Close-mid      
Open-mid ɛ̃   ɔ̃
Open   ã  

[edit] Tones

Ga has 2 tones, high and low. Like many West African languages, it has tone terracing.

[edit] Phonotactics

The possible syllable structures are V, CV, CCV where the second consonant is /l/, or a syllabic nasal.

[edit] Writing system

Ga was first written by Christian Jacobsen Protten, who was the son of a Danish soldier and an African woman, in about 1764. The orthography has been revised a number of times since 1968, with the most recent review in 1990.

The writing system is a Latin-based alphabet and has 26 letters. It has three additional letter symbols which correspond to the IPA symbols. There are also eleven digraphs and two trigraphs. Vowel length is represented by doubling or tripling the vowel symbol, eg 'a', 'aa' and 'aaa'. Tones are not represented. Nasalisation is represented after oral consonants where it distinguishes between minimal pairs.

The Ga alphabet is: Aa, Bb, Dd, Ee, Ɛɛ, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ŋŋ, Oo, Ɔɔ, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Yy, Zz

The following letters represent sounds which do not correspond with the same letter as the IPA symbol (eg B represents /b/):

  • J j - /ʤ/
  • Y y - /j/

Digraphs and trigraphs:

  • Gb gb - /ɡb/
  • Gw gw - /ɡʷ/
  • Hw hw - /hʷ/
  • Jw jw - /ʤʷ/
  • Kp kp - /kp/
  • Kw kw - /kʷ/
  • Ny ny - /ɲ/
  • Ŋm ŋm - /ŋm/
  • Ŋw ŋw - [ŋʷ] (an allophone rather than a phoneme)
  • Sh sh - /ʃ/
  • Ts ts - /ʧ/
  • Shw shw - /ʃʷ/
  • Tsw tsw - /ʧʷ/

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • (1977) in M. E. Kropp Dakubu: West African Language Data Sheets Vol 1. West African Linguistic Society. 
  • (1988) in M. E. Kropp Dakubu: The Languages of Ghana. London: Kegan Paul International for the International African Institute. ISBN 0-7103-0210-X. 
  • M. E. Kropp Dakubu (2002). Ga Phonology. Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. 
  • Bureau of Ghana Languages (1995). Ga Wiemɔ Kɛ Ŋmaa. Accra:Bureau of Ghana Languages. ISBN 9964-2-0276-8. 
  • A. A. Amartey (1989). Beginners' Ga. Ga Society. 

[edit] External links

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