The following item from the Ghanaian paper, The Statesman, was seen at
http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=3242§ion=6
(and on lgpolicy-list)... Don
Promotion of Ghanian languages must be prioritised now
Ayuure Kapini Atafori , 21/04/2007
Surprising it may not be for many to know that language is the soul of
every culture of a people. Since time immemorial, archaeologists,
anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers and,
especially linguists, have established the natural centrality of
language in culture.
Edward Burnett Tylor and other anthropologists accept that language is
inseparable from culture. In fact, it is an essential part of culture.
Language, like culture, is diverse, cumulative and dynamic. Based on
the affinity between language and culture, an 18th century German
philosopher, L W Herder, held the view that people use language as the
key to find what makes culture what it is.
Though Herder's opinion may be a bit exaggerative, it is quite
impossible to conceive of the origin or development of a culture apart
from language; for it is that part of culture which enables human
beings to make their own experiences and learning continuous as well
as to participate vicariously in the experiences and practices of
other persons. According to the American linguist Edward Sapir,
language is a guide to social reality.
Sapir assumes that human beings do not live in the objective world
alone, nor in the world of social activity because they are very much
at the mercy of a particular language which has become the medium of
expression for their society. A language is a cultural system which
more or less faithfully reflects the structuring of reality which is
peculiar to the group that speaks it. Thus, linguistic systems
inter-penetrate all other systems within a culture.
Language is the principal source of the emergence and perpetuation of
culture. It is a vital source of people"s collective culture: their
past present and future experiences and identity. People who,
therefore, speak the same language are more likely to share common
beliefs, values and interests than those who do not share a language.
It is an empirical reality that people express sympathetic sentiments
towards others who speak the same language.
Language is also an essential source of a people's collective
consciousness, since there are certain experiences which may be only
comprehensible to people who speak the same language. Linguists find a
close and dynamic relationship between language and thought. For, it
is in language that custom, tradition, ethics, poetry, history,
religion and rituals are incarnated.
The universality of language makes it unique to some elements of
culture. A language universal is property shared by all languages in
the world. Some of the generalisations are that every human community
has a language; every spoken language has vocal-auditory channel; and
every human language is learnable.
Languages in Ghana
No matter the volume and intensity of the arguments about the
relationship between culture and language, and linguistic
universality, it is significant that Ghanaian languages have played,
and continue to play, an important role in the daily live of the people.
Ghanaian languages can be defined as languages that are indigenous to
Ghana. Though the number is not exact, about 70 ethnic groups exist in
Ghana. These groups are compressed into four major language groups:
Akan, Mole-Dagbani, Ewe and Guan. Despite English being the official
language of the country and being spoken by a majority of the
population, it is not, like Hausa, and French, a Ghanaian language.
Florence Dolphyne, a Professor and former head of the Linguistics
Department of University of Ghana, is sure that there a difficulty in
ascertaining the exact number of indigenous languages in Ghana. This,
she says, creates a linguistic problem in the country.
In a 1979 paper, "Linguistics and Its relevance to Ghana", Prof
Dolphyne surmises that there are 42 local languages in the country.
Kingsley Andoh-Kumi, former head of the Department of Ghanaian
Languages at the University of Cape Coast, quotes N Denny (1963) as
having estimated that between 47 and 62 languages are identifiable in
Ghana. Edward Hall itemises 44 indigenous languages while Kropp Dakubu
identifies between 45 and 50 languages.
Andoh-Kumi concurs with Dolphyne on the difficulty of defining and
counting local languages, and puts it: "The identification of language
communities and the determination of the number of speakers of the
various languages can be problematic. The problem is complicated by
the fact that some of the languages have several names, and the names
are sometimes confusing. Another problem is attitude".
Making reference to Dolphyne, he explicates that speakers of minority
languages or dialects may want to identify themselves with some larger
or more prestigious groups, while others may consider their languages
superior and therefore may be unwilling to associate with minority ones.
Ghanaian languages, like living organisms, have families. They belong
to the two main sub-groups of the larger Niger-Congo language family,
namely the Gur and Kwa. The languages of northern Ghana, except Gonja,
come from the Gur or "voltaic" family while those spoken in mainly in
the forest South originate from the Kwa family.
The Gur languages include Bimoba, Buli, Dagaare, Dagbani, Kasem,
Gurene, Mampruni, Mo, Nankane, Sissala and Vagla. The Kwa group of
languages are Akan (Akuapem, Twi, Fante, etc.) Ahanta, Aowin, Dangbe,
Ewe, Ga, Guan (Gonja, Efutu, Krach, Larteh, Nkonya, etc.) and Nzema,
among others. Dolphyne notes that another problem with the study of
Ghanaian languages has to do with whether to identify what a
linguistic community speaks is a distinct language or only a dialect
of a larger language.
She explains: "This problem is due to several factors, one of which is
the fact that very often while different dialects of a language have
their individual names, the language itself may not have a name."
Thus, the language whose dialects are Akuapem, Asante (Twi), Fante and
Agona did not have a name until in the late 1950s when Akan was
adopted as the generic name for these dialects. On the opposite side
of the coin, dialects of the language group have been referred to as
the language. For instance, groups of people say they speak Guang
instead of Efutu, Gonja or Larteh as if Guang is a single language.
National language policy
Realising the importance of local languages, past governments selected
ten languages out of the lot for use at all levels of education, and
for media use. These are Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dangbe, Ewe, Ga,
Gurune, Kasem and Nzema. In the past and at present, limited materials
like story books, text-books, newspapers and radio and TV programmes
have been developed in these languages for educational purposes and
for mass communication.
Ghanaian languages are used extensively for various purposes. Much as
they are used for functions such as entertainment, education, trading
and business, and for the mass media and religion, they serve as a
vehicle of written and oral communication; are used to propagate
knowledge and experience; and are used to interpret and transmit
culture. The local languages are also employed to foster inter-ethnic
and intra-ethnic co-operation, solidarity and unity, while other
groups use them for self-expression and for persuading others,
ceremonial, ritual; and phatic communication purposes.
In the light of the significance of Ghanaian languages, how do we
promote them? These languages can be promoted through various ways
which are not easy to implement. A major step in that direction is the
formulation and implementation of a sound language policy for the
whole country.
The policy must lay emphasis on the important role local languages
play in nation-building and socio-economic development. For example,
one language could be chosen as a second official language. It should
also underscore the importance of the languages by devising a national
formal and informal education policy that positively changes the
mentality of the populace towards native languages.
An effective national language policy must be anchored on the
establishment or upgrading of institutions responsible for the study
and development of indigenous languages. Many of our languages have no
orthography or scripts, and so they remain unwritten and undeveloped.
Institutions such as the Bureau of Ghanaian Languages, Ajumako
Institute of Languages and Local Languages and Linguistics departments
at the universities, and the Institute of African Studies, could be
assisted to harness the potentials of the languages. The Ghana
Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation has been
doing an excellent job in developing some languages, particularly in
the North.
Another means of promoting local languages is the implementation of a
co-ordinated and unified policy on the study of the languages at in
our educational system. This could be done through the use of local
languages as a medium of instruction for the first four years of
school. These languages could also be enriched when they are studied
as subjects in the curriculum at all level of the educational pyramid.
They get a booster when they are printed in text-books, and provided
to pupils and students. The training of teachers to handle the
languages will go a long way to help the promotion of such languages.
The development of accurate and widely accepted orthographies for
local languages will immensely promote their growth, use and
popularity. Due to our strong pristine oral tradition, our languages
were not in written form until the European Christian missionaries
came to develop scripts for them for religious purposes. Currently,
the promotion of the languages is hampered by controversies over
orthography. Hence, the need for consensus on what the standard
orthography and pronunciation is so that proficiency in the spelling
adopted for a particular language could spread widely.
The application of the languages in the mass media is recommendable
for the promotion of Ghanaian languages. Thus, the production and
dissemination of radio and TV programmes in the languages will be
worthwhile. The production of films, newspapers, magazines, novel and
other books in the languages will assist to promote them. Encouraging
the use of the languages in the performing arts is useful for
promoting them.
Other ways of promotion of the languages include the use of language
museums, libraries and archives, and exhibition of popular linguistic
characteristics as well as local language competitions.
Today, Ghanaian languages are of practical importance and pertinence
to the people due to the dominance of a foreign language, English,
which has been superimposed on the then colonized people of the Gold
Coast. To let these languages to continue to have modern functionality
and relevance, Government must prioritise their promotion and use.
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