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Akan language resources
Akan is spoken on a daily basis in: Ghana
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Additional background on
Akan
Twi language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Akan language(s) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the most famous Akan speaker. His name "Kofi" means he was a boy born on a Friday.
Akan languages are those languages belonging to the Kwa language family spoken in Ghana and the C�te d'Ivoire:
Agona Ahafo Akan Twi Akuapem Twi Asante Twi (Ashanti) Fante (Fanti, Mfantse) Akyem (Akyem Bosome) Andoh Anyi Asen Atti� Baule Brong Chakosi Dankyira Guang Kwahu Nzema Sefwi
Also, Akan is itself the name of a major Ghanaian language spoken comprising these dialects:
Twi - Both the Akuapem and Asante (Ashanti) dialects Fante (Fanti, Mfantse)
These variants all have written forms. In terms of numbers of speakers Brong should be included also but never has been laid down in written form. The Bureau of Ghanian languages compiled a 20,000-word list of a unified orthography for these three variants which is not in widespread use yet. Also exist the adinkra symbols, old ideograms. The Akan language is one of the primary government-sponsored languages in Ghana. It is written in the Roman alphabet.
The language came to South America, notably Suriname, with the slaves. Escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname still use a form of this language, including the custom of naming children the day of the week that they were born e.g. Kwasi (for a boy) or Kwasiba (girl) born on a Sunday. In Suriname also the Anansi spider stories are well known.
According to work done by P K Agbedor of CASAS, Mfantse and Twi (together known as Akan) belong to Cluster 1 of the speech forms of Ghana. Clusters are defined by the level of mutual intelligibility. The Abron(Bono) and Wasa dialects are considered part of this cluster.
Cluster 1 comprises:
Akan (Niger-Congo � Atlantic Congo � Volta Congo � Kwa � Nyo � Potou-Tano � Tano � Central) Abron (Niger-Congo � Atlantic Congo � Volta Congo � Kwa � Nyo � Potou-Tano � Tano � Central � Akan) Wasa (Niger-Congo � Atlantic Congo � Volta Congo � Kwa � Nyo � Potou-Tano � Tano � Central � Akan).
Cluster 1 may better be named r-Akan (mainly Twi, Fante, Akuapem, Akyem, Wasa, Bono, Asen, Akwamu, Kwahu spoken mainly in Ghana, parts of Togo) which do not explicitly have the letter �l� in their original proper use. On the other hand l-Akan, refers to the Akan cluster comprising Nzema, Baule, and other dialects spoken mainly in the Ivory Coast, whose use of the letter �r� in proper usage is very rare.
Akan
What are the most spoken languages on earth?
All data is derived from UNESCO.
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