Sarpong Justice


For those who have a problem in accepting a common language for all Ghanaians ,
hold off your guns, this is not an article advocating for the government to pass
any legislation making Twi the official language of Ghana. No legislation or
government interference is needed in what language the people of Ghana ought to
conduct their business or social interactions in. The importance of a language
or a dominant language emerges in society where there are many tribes with
different languages and the driving force behind one language dominating others
in one country evolve through the commercial viability of that language, and
that is what we are seeing in Ghana at the moment. In essence, commerce is the
driving force that determines what language ought to be learnt and treasure.

We have 79 languages in Ghana.Nine languages have the status of
government-sponsored languages: Akan, Dagaare/Wale, Dagbani, Dangme, Ewe, Ga,
Gonja, Kasem, Nzema. However, two dialects of Akan, Twi and Fante,although not
government-sponsored, are also widely-spoken in Ghana. About fifty percent
Ghanaians are born with Twi being a mother's tongue but more than 70% of
Ghanaians speak a variety of the Twi language and most commercial activities
and cultural events are conducted in Twi, one might ask, WHY IS THAT SO? My
simple answer is that, though English language is the official language in the
country, most market women, farmers, fishermen who are the driving force behind
our commerce can hardly utter a word in English and since Twi which is easier to
learn and the Twi speaking people dominate our commercial activities, one can
easily envisage why Twi language has become dominant in Ghana.

As people, our prosopography are the same except the languages spoken by
different tribes but our Neolithic ancestors had the same lifestyle eking out a
living as hunters and farmers in a communial life and supposedly had
consanguineous clans as their basic social settings but as society develops and
expands due to migration, we interact with other people with different languages
and a common medium of communication has to emerge and that is what we are
seeing in Ghana with Twi exerting its dominance and no law can stop it or
accelerate it. Let's take Accra for instance. In the 70's, the Ga language was
heard everywhere in the city and those people who moved to Accra earlier on
learnt the Ga language but now the situation is different. One can hardly hear
Ga in Accra until you go Bukom, Chorkor, Ashiaman and the few Ga enclaves left
in the city. Late migrants to Accra now don't learn the Ga language anymore but
rather the Twi language because commercial activities are conducted in Twi and
English rather than Ga.


The Twi language dominates our art and culture not because the Twi speaking
people are forcing their language on others but as the golden rule states,
whoever has the gold rules and in this case, the Twi speaking people have the
numbers and a dominance in commerce to expand the influence of their language.
In Ghana, you can hardly hear any popular music in any other language apart from
Twi and the reason behind this is that, Musicians make music that will sell and
that is why you see Musicians who are not even Twi speaking natives making music
in Twi. It is not that these Gas, Northerners, Ewes and others making Twi music
are abandoning their languages but they are not stupid either to make music in
their languages that will not sell and sit on store shelves gathering cobwebs.
Making music in Twi or making Twi movies sell, and that is the bottom line.


Our film idustry though at its nascent stages are producing Twi films, albeit
most of them badly made without a storyline with actors with names like
Christiana Awuni, Edmund Quashie, Nii Saka Brown and others whose names suggest
they are not native born Twi speakers but have to learn this language if they
want to survive in this industry and make acting as a career. Why are these
people not making films with Ewe, Ga or Dagaare/Wale, dialect? The simple fact
is that, making any film in Ghana apart from it being in English or Twi will not
sell, the same thing applies in radio presentations. Radio, T.V and film
studios are set up to make money for its owners and these owners might not even
be Twi speaking people but they are not going to commit commercial suicide by
broadcasting or making movies in languages that will not sell and it is through
these avenues that the Twi language will continue to grow and naturally will
become the official language in Ghana without any government making it a law.
Human instinct will go into survival mode, and in about fifty years from now,
almost every Ghanaian will be speaking the Twi language. The critics and haters
who would like to see the "AKWAABA" sign at the Kotoka International Airport
pulled down because it is in Twi have to face reality, languages evolve, and Twi
language is spreading like an inferno in Ghana and and the spittle of
resistance will not extinguish the momentum of the language in vogue now; TWI


It is the Twi language that binds us as Ghanaians in diaspora and makes us
different from other Africans who cannot communicate across tribal lines.
Nigerians are notorious in this regard in diaspora as not associating with
others who are not from the same tribe and the reason is because of language
barrier exacerbated by tribalism and ethnocentrism . The number of languages
currently estimated and catalogued in Nigeria is 521. This number includes 510
living languages, two second languages without native speakers and 9 extinct
languages. Our colonial masters can be blamed for our disunity because they made
it easier for themselves to assimilate us by teaching us to communicate in
English language.

"The official language of Nigeria, English, the former colonial language, was
chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country. The major
languages spoken in Nigeria are Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba"


Let me divagate a little here and cite the Chinese example.
One might ask, why has China adopted a policy to teach English to everybody in
the country with an initial policy of teaching the English language from
Kindergaten to the University level when the Mandarin language With 1 billion
speakers, is the most spoken language in the world.? The answer is commerce.


Despite Mandarin being the most spoken language in the world, China in order to
become the dominant economic super power it aims to achieve has to train its own
English speakers that can market China products in USA, Britain, Australia and
other rich English countries to achieve its aim because the native Mandarin
Chinese commerce in terms of capital cannot dwarf the mighty English speaking
countries.
When China has seen its future in learning English as a fall back on alternative
to its own mandarin local language, some sections of Ghanaians are resisting the
growth of the Twi language due to tribalism.

"English, the former colonial language, was chosen to facilitate the cultural
and linguistic unity of the country."

That was the colonial masters mentality, a common language to fascilitate the
cultural and linguistic unity without making any effort to teach this language
in every boondocks in the countries they occupied.


Look at United States which was also under British rule. Why did the English
language become dominant and 'killed' other languages the indigenes brought from
countries like France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy and other countries and
the only language in United States when Italians who settled in New York area,
The Germans who settled in the midwest, especially in Missouri. The Swedes and
Norwegians who settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota and the French who found the
state of Louisianna assimiliated into the larger English colonies and allowed
their language to die out through generations?


Most of us are cowards and afraid to say the impending reality on the horizon,
which is that, most of the languages in Ghana will become extinct and Twi will
become the dominant language with more than 70% of the people speaking it now.
Most of us, if not all of us living now might not witness it, but in about
hundred years from now, almost 100% of Ghanaians will be speaking the Twi
language with the advent of radio, T.V and movie studios doing business in Twi
and this is what is going to make Twi the unofficial official language in Ghana
without the government intrusion. Commerce accelerate the growth of a language
and as long as the Twi speaking people in Ghana dominate commerce, the growth
and dominance of the Twi language will continue unabated.


Justice Sarpong

Houston, Texas