Ga language
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Ga is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra, by the Ga people. There are also some speakers in Togo, Benin and western Nigeria.Template:Nvb It has a phonemic distinction between three vowel lengths.Template:Nvb
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.
Ga is the predominant language of the Ga people, an ethnic group of Ghana. Ethnic Ga family names (surnames) include Owoo, Lartey, Lomo, Nortey, Aryee, Lamptey, Tetteh, Ankrah, Tetteyfio, Laryea, Ayitey, Okine, Bortey, Quarshie, Quaye, Quaynor, Ashong, Kotei, Clottey, Nai, Sowah, Odoi, Maale, Ako, Adjetey, Annang, Yemoh and Abbey.
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 in which the Bureau of Ghana Languages publishes material.
Phonology
Consonants
Ga has 31 consonant phonemes.
- Template:IPA is an allophone of Template:IPA which occurs before nasals and is represented with its own digraph in writing.
- Template:IPA may be realised as Template:IPA when between a consonant and vowel
- Template:IPA has an allophone Template:IPA before nasal vowels
Vowels
Ga has seven oral vowels and five nasal vowels. All of the vowels have three different vowel lengths: short, long or extra long (the latter appears only in the simple future and the simple past negative forms).
Tones
Ga has two tones, high and low. Like many West African languages, it has tone terracing.
Phonotactics
The syllable structure of Ga is Template:Transliteration, where the second phoneme of an initial consonant cluster can only be Template:IPA and a final consonant may only be a (short or long) nasal consonant, e.g. ekome, "one", V-CV-CV; kakadaŋŋ, "long", CV-CV-CVC; mli, "inside", CCV. Ga syllables may also consist solely of a syllabic nasal, for example in the first syllable of ŋshɔ, "sea".
Writing system
Ga was first written in about 1764, by Christian Jacob Protten (1715–1769), who was the son of a Danish soldier and a Ga woman.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":12">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite journal</ref> Protten was a Gold Coast Euro-African Moravian missionary and educator in the eighteenth century. In the mid-1800s, the Germany missionary Johannes Zimmermann (1825–1876), assisted by the Gold Coast historian Carl Christian Reindorf (1834–1917) and others, worked extensively on the grammar of the language, published a dictionary and translated the entire Bible into the Ga language.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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, e.g. '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 (e.g. B represents Template:IPA):
- J j - Template:IPA
- Y y - Template:IPA
Digraphs and trigraphs:
- Gb gb - Template:IPA
- Gw gw - Template:IPA
- Hw hw - Template:IPA
- Jw jw - Template:IPA
- Kp kp - Template:IPA
- Kw kw - Template:IPA
- Ny ny - Template:IPA
- Ŋm ŋm - Template:IPA
- Ŋw ŋw - Template:IPA (an allophone rather than a phoneme)
- Sh sh - Template:IPA
- Ts ts - Template:IPA
- Shw shw - Template:IPA
- Tsw tsw - Template:IPA
Oral literature
In his 1865 collection, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton published over 200 Ga proverbs and sayings with English translations,<ref>Burton, Richard (1865). Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. pp. 133-175.</ref> taken from Johannes Zimmermann's Grammatical Sketch of the Akra Language.<ref>[Johannes Zimmermann (1858). https://archive.org/details/agrammaticalske01zimmgoog Grammatical Sketch of the Akra Language] pp. 158-9</ref> Here are some of those sayings as recorded with its historical orthography:Template:Efn
- "Template:Lang" "Gunpowder and fire do not agree." (#7)
- "Template:Lang" "If it is dark, all men are black." (#11)
- "Template:Lang" "Clear water is not wanted for quenching fire." (#13)
- "Template:Lang" "Not with both eyes people look into a bottle." (#15)
See also
Footnotes
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References
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External links
- My First GaDangme Dictionary Template:Webarchive kasahorow
- Short tutorial on counting in the Ga language
- Young boy speaking about Ghanaian tribes in Ga language
Template:Languages of Ghana Template:Kwa languages Template:Authority control