Fante dialect

Fante
Fante
Native toGhana
EthnicityFante people
Native speakers
2.8 million (2013)[1]
Official status
Regulated byAkan Orthography Committee
Language codes
ISO 639-2fat
ISO 639-3fat (see [aka] for Ethnologue description)
Glottologfant1241
Fante translation of the Book of Mormon; note the use of the Latin epsilon in the word N'AHYƐMU.

Fante (Fanti: [ˈfɑnti]), also known as Fanti, Fantse, or Mfantse, is one of the four principal members of the Akan dialect continuum, along with Asante, Bono and Akuapem, the latter three collectively known as Twi, with which it is mutually intelligible.[2][3] It is principally spoken in the central and southern regions of Ghana as well as in settlements in other regions in western Ghana, Ivory Coast, as well as in Liberia, Gambia and Angola.[1]

Fante is the common dialect of the Fante people, whose communities each have their own subdialects, namely Agona, Anomabo, Abura and Gomoa,[4] all of which are mutually intelligible. Schacter and Fromkin describe two main Fante dialect groups: Fante 1, which uses a syllable-final /w/ and thus distinguishes kaw ("dance") and ka ("bite"); and Fante 2, where these words are homophonous.[2] A standardized form of Fante is taught in primary and secondary schools.[1] Many Fantes are bilingual or bidialectal and most can speak Twi.[5]

Notable speakers include Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson,[6] Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang,[7] former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan,[8][9] and former Ghanaian presidents Kwame Nkrumah and John Atta Mills.[10][11] Maya Angelou[12][13] learned Fante as an adult during her stay in Ghana.

Today Fante is spoken by more than 6 million people in Ghana primarily in the Central and Western Regions. It is also widely spoken in Tema, where majority of the people in that city are native Fante speakers who were settled after the new port was built.

One striking characteristic of the Fante dialect is the level of English influence, including English loanwords and anglicized forms of native names, due both to British colonial influence and "to fill lexical and semantic gaps, for reasons of simplicity and also for prestige". Examples of such borrowings include rɛkɔso ("records"), rɔba "rubber", nɔma ("number"), kolapuse "collapse", and dɛkuleti "decorate".[14] Native names are occasionally anglicized, such as "Mεnsa" becoming "Mensah" or "Atta" becoming "Arthur".[15]

  1. ^ a b c Akan at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ a b Schacter, Paul; Fromkin, Victoria (1968). A Phonology of Akan: Akuapem, Asante, Fante. Los Angeles: UC Press. p. 3.
  3. ^ Arhin, Kwame; Studies, University of Ghana Institute of African (1979). A Profile of Brong Kyempim: Essays on the Archaeology, History, Language and Politics of the Brong Peoples of Ghana. Afram.
  4. ^ Fante dialect at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  5. ^ Abakah, Emmanuel Nicholas (2004). "Elision in Fante" (PDF). Africa & Asia: 181–213.
  6. ^ Jones, Sam; Afua Hirsch (2013-02-11). "Who will be the next pope? The contenders for Vatican's top job". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  7. ^ "Make no mistake, Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang is a courageous Fante!". GhanaWeb. 2020-07-18. Retrieved 2023-10-02.
  8. ^ "William Shawcross - UK : official personal website". 2014-01-14. Archived from the original on 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  9. ^ "Kofi Annan | Biography & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  10. ^ Welmers, William Everett (1946). A Descriptive Grammar of Fanti. Linguistic Society of America. p. 7.
  11. ^ Sunday, Eno-Abasi; Andrew Oyafemi (2012-07-25). "John Atta Mills: Death of an African leader". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  12. ^ Hambleton, Laura (2011-10-24). "Celebrated poet Maya Angelou speaks about a life well and creatively lived". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  13. ^ Drezen, Anna; Angelou, Maya (2018). "American Masters - The Poet: Dr. Maya Angelou". www.pbs.org. PBS. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  14. ^ Apenteng, Monica Amoah; Amfo, Nana Aba Appiah (2014). "The Form and Function of English Loanwords in Akan". Nordic Journal of African Studies. 23: 219–240.
  15. ^ Agyekum, Kofi (2006-12-31). "The Sociolinguistic of Akan Personal Names". Nordic Journal of African Studies. 15 (2). ISSN 1459-9465.