Twi-Fante, commonly referred to by its speakers as either Twi (pronounced ) or Fante () and academically and institutionally known by the broader term Akan (pronounced ), is a widely spoken language of Ghana and the main native language of the Akan people. Spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana, about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers, and about 80% of Ghana's population speak Akan as a first or second language. The Bono dialect is also widely spoken in Ghana and across the border in Ivory Coast.
Three dialects of Twi-Fante were developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies: Asante Twi, Akuapem 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 Twi-Fante orthography in 1978, based mainly on Akuapem dialect. As the first Akan variety to be used for Bible translation, Akuapem Twi had become the prestige dialect.
With the Atlantic slave trade, Akan languages, principally Twi/Fante, were introduced to the Caribbean and South America, notably in Suriname and Jamaica, where they heavily influenced the language of the Ndyuka and 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, etc. In Jamaica and Suriname, the Ananse spider stories are still well-known.
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Name
Originally, the language was known by local names rather than a single unifying term. Inland Akan groups referred to it as 'Twi' (; Akan: [tɕᶣi]), while coastal Akan groups referred to it as 'Fante'. After independence, the national language commission adopted 'Akan', a name that had been used for all the languages spoken by the Akan people, which includes the Bia languages in addition to Twi-Fante, as a unitary name for Twi-Fante specifically. The broader scope was renamed Central Tano to avoid ambiguity. However, many sources still refer to all the languages spoken by the Akan people as 'Akan'.
History
The largest Akan migration was to Ghana in successive waves between the 11th and 18th centuries. Smaller numbers migrated to the eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire and parts of Togo. Within Ghana, the Akan expanded from the north to occupy the southern forest and coastal areas during the 13th century. The Akans have a strong oral history tradition of their past and are also known in for symbolic artifacts of wood, metal and terracotta. Their cultural ideas are expressed in stories and proverbs as well as in designs such as symbols used in carvings and on clothes. The rich Akan culture and history in Ghana are areas of research for many disciplines, such as folklore, literary studies, linguistics, anthropology, and history.
Dialects
Twi-Fante is a dialect continuum that is closely related to the Bia languages and the other Akan languages that are spoken by the Akan people. The relationships of the major Twi-Fante 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 [Bono] as a different language.'
Phonology
The Twi-Fante 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 /n/ are quite complex. In the table below, palatalized allophones which involve more than minor phonetic palatalization are specified, in the context of the vowel /i/. These sounds do occur before other vowels, such as /a/, though in most cases not commonly.
In Asante, /ɡu/ followed by a vowel is pronounced /ɡʷ/, but in Akuapem it remains /ɡu/. The sequence /nh/ is pronounced [ŋŋ̊].
A word final /k/ can be heard as a glottal stop [ʔ]. There is also a nasalization of /h/ and of /j w/ as [h̃] and [j̃ w̃], when occurring before nasal vowels.
The transcriptions in the tables below are in the order /phonemic/, [phonetic]. Note that orthographic ⟨dw⟩ is ambiguous; in textbooks, ⟨dw⟩ = /ɡ/ may be distinguished from /dw/ with a diacritic: d̩w. Likewise, velar ⟨nw⟩ (ŋw) may be transcribed n̩w. Orthographic ⟨nu⟩ is palatalized [ɲᶣ].
Vowels
The Twi-Fante 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 /a/, but neither is ATR. The two vowels written e (/e/ and /i̙/) and o (/o/ and /u̙/) are often not distinguished in pronunciation.
Twi-Fante 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 e ɛ a ɔ o 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 ⟨e o⟩, and in many dialects this rule does not apply, for these vowels have merged.
Tones
Twi-Fante has three phonemic tones, high (/H/), mid (/M/), and low (/L/). Initial syllable may only be high or low.
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
Twi-Fante historically had a noun class system similar to that of Bantu languages. Although this system is now largely defunct, remnants of it persist in modern Twi-Fante plural formation, particularly through prefixes and suffixes. The current pluralisation system blends fossilised class prefixes with newer morphological strategies, especially for human nouns. Human nouns have preserved more elements of the old system than non-human nouns and can use multiple plural-marking strategies simultaneously.
In modern Twi-Fante, plural formation has shifted from a purely prefixal historical system to a mixed one using both prefixes and suffixes, with human nouns showing the most complex patterns.
Many Twi-Fante nouns form their plurals through the addition or replacement of nasal prefixes (m-, n-), a remnant of the old noun class system.
In this process, the original class prefix (typically a-) is replaced by a homorganic nasal prefix that assimilates to the initial consonant of the root word. For example, initial ab- becomes mm- and ad- becomes nn- in plural forms.
Plural suffixes are also used, primarily for human and agentive nouns. Human nouns show the most complex plural marking, frequently combining old prefixal and new suffixal methods.
With -nom
This suffix is used primarily for kinship and social role terms.
With -fo
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., onua → enuanom); human nouns thus show more complex plural marking than non-human nouns.
Certain Twi-Fante nouns remain unchanged in the plural. These invariant nouns, including mass nouns and inherently plural items, have lost plural marking entirely as the historical class system has simplified.
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. 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 unified "Akan" orthography for Twi-Fante, which is used as the medium of instruction in primary school. Literacy in Twi-Fante is counted toward general literacy, from at least the lower primary level (primary 1–3).
University
Twi-Fante is 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. Twi-Fante has been a regular African language of study in the annual Summer Cooperative African Languages Institute (SCALI) program. The Twi-Fante language is studied in these universities as a bachelor or masters program.
Vocabulary
System of given names
The Akan people use a common naming system of giving the first name to a child, based on the day of the week that the child was born. Most of the nations in Ghana have a similar custom, which extends to neighboring countries.