Ga language

Ga
Gã
Pronunciation	[ɡã]
Spoken in	South-eastern Ghana, around Accra
Ethnicity	Ga
Native speakers	600,000  (2004)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Kwa Ga–Dangme Ga
Writing system	Latin (Ga alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Ghana
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-2	gaa
ISO 639-3	gaa

The Ga language is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. It has a phonemic distinction between 3 vowel lengths.

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 name of the Tribe.

Ga is the language spoken.

Gamashie is the name of the capital of the Ga tribe in Ghana.

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.

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental		Postalveolar and palatal				Velar				Labial- velar		Glottal
					Plain		Labialized		Plain		Lab.v				Plain	Lab.
Nasal	m		n		ɲ				ŋ				ŋ͡m
Stop	p	b	t	d	tʃ	dʒ	tʃʷ	dʒʷ	k	ɡ	kʷ	ɡʷ	k͡p	ɡ͡b
Fricative	f	v	s	z	ʃ		ʃʷ								h	hʷ
Approximant			l		j		ɥ						w

• [ŋʷ] is an allophone of /w/ which occurs before nasals and is represented with its own digraph in writing.
• /l/ may be realised as [r] when between a consonant and vowel
• /j/ has an allophone [ɲ] before nasal vowels

Vowels

Ga has 7 oral vowels and 5 nasal vowels. All of the vowels have 3 different vowel lengths: short, long or extra long (the latter appears only in the simple future and the simple past negative forms).

Monophthongs

	Front		Central		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
Close	i	ĩ			u	ũ
Close-mid	e				o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛ̃			ɔ	ɔ̃
Open			a	ã

Tones

Ga has 2 tones, high and low. Like many West African languages, it has tone terracing.

Phonotactics

The syllable structure of Ga is (C)(C)V(C), where the second phoneme of an initial consonant cluster can only be /l/ 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, "body", CCV. Ga syllables may also consist solely of a syllabic nasal, for example in the first syllable of ŋshɔ, "sea". Several geographical and physical phenomena had been recognised by the Gas to be origins of spiiritual powers and life. Centrall to the Ga custom is the Korle Lagoon, Osu Klottey lagoon, Kpeshie lagoon and other waterbodies are believed to have deities in them for rituals are performed annually to pacify and honour them.

Writing system

Ga was first written by Christian Jacobsen Protten, who was the son of a Danish soldier and an African woman, in about 1764. 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, eg '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 (eg B represents /b/):

• J j - /d͡ʒ/
• Y y - /j/

Digraphs and trigraphs:

• Gb gb - /ɡb/
• Gw gw - /ɡʷ/
• Hw hw - /hʷ/
• Jw jw - /d͡ʒʷ/
• Kp kp - /kp/
• Kw kw - /kʷ/
• Ny ny - /ɲ/
• Ŋm ŋm - /ŋm/
• Ŋw ŋw - [ŋʷ] (an allophone rather than a phoneme)
• Sh sh - /ʃ/
• Ts ts - /t͡ʃ/
• Shw shw - /ʃʷ/
• Tsw tsw - /t͡ʃʷ/

See also

• Ga people
• Carl Christian Reindorf

References

• M. E. Kropp Dakubu, ed. (1977). West African Language Data Sheets Vol 1. West African Linguistic Society. 
• M. E. Kropp Dakubu, ed. (1988). The Languages of Ghana. London: Kegan Paul International for the International African Institute. ISBN 0-7103-0210-X. 
• M. E. Kropp Dakubu (1999). Ga-English dictionary with English-Ga Index. Accra: Black Mask Ltd.. ISBN 9964960506. 
• M. E. Kropp Dakubu (2002). Ga Phonology. Lego: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. 
• Bureau of Ghana Languages (1995). Ga Wiemɔ Kɛ Ŋmaa. Accra:Bureau of Ghana Languages. ISBN 9964-2-0276-8. 
• A. A. Amartey (1989). Beginners' Ga. Ga Society. 

External links

• Ethnologue entry
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Ga language
• kasahorow Free Ga-Adangme Dictionary