THE GA ENGLISH ACCENT

The Ga Accent is a sub-dialect of the broader Ghanaian Accent dialect known to find predominance around the southern strip of the country, specifically Greater Accra Region. Because of Greater Accra’s unique urban orientation and the influx of settlers from other parts of the country, it is often assumed that Ga Accent is gradually waning into the slums where education is quite uncommon.

The Greater Accra Region is the smallest of Ghana's 10 administrative regions in terms of area, occupying a total land surface of 3,245 square kilometers or 1.4 per cent of the total land area of Ghana. In terms of population, however, it is the second most populated region, after the Ashanti Region, with a population of 2,905,726 in 2000, accounting for 15.4 per cent of Ghana’s total population. The Greater Accra region currently harbors the seat of government in Accra.

Linguistically speaking, however, very few features of the Ga English accent also occur elsewhere in the country. What make a Ga English accent stand apart somewhat from the rest of the accents in the country is the strong, noticeable Ga linguistic features that mysteriously finds its way into the speakers’ English Accent. As many might agree, the heavy Ga influence translates noticeably through not just speech, but mannerisms.

As regards speech, most Ga’s are inclined to interchange “h” and “a” in their speech. This makes their mode of pronunciations very confusing to most non-speakers. Words such as air and hair are pronounced interchangeably, so do words like ear and hear as well s heat and eat. This characteristic is actually also present among Yuroba English speakers of Nigeria. History has it that Ga’s migrated from Ile Ife which happens to be one of the central town of the Yurobas.

Another markedly distinct feature is the replacement of the short “i” sound to a heavy “I” sound causing words like hit to sound like “eat” and “fish” like “feesh”. This could be as a result of the heavy of the sounds characteristic of the Ga language. One interstingly unusual feature with the Ga English Accent is the level confidence with which they mispronounce words.

THE TWI ENGLISH ACCENT

Twis are the principal native language speakers of Akan lands in Ghana. Covering much over half of the country, this dialect is spoken by about 58% of the Ghanaian population mainly around the southern half of the country. This subgroup of the Akan tribe is primarily located in the Ashanti and Eastern Regions of Ghana.

The Ghanaian English accent of the Twis has long been branded as one of the most popular and distinct accents within the categories of Ghanaian English accents. A number of features of the Twi English accent make it very obvious for a non-Akan speaker to notice. These features include:

i.                    The classic “r - l” interchange

ii.                  The peculiar “w” sound

iii.                The “er” sound

iv.                The “th” sound

THE “R – L” INTERCHANGE

The classic “r - l” interchange is veritably the most striking feature of the Twi English accent. Many Twis are stereotyped to have this subconscious tendency to switch these two sounds in place of each other. This accent deviation from the usual often provokes humor to non-speakers. This exchange might have been the result of their linguistic origin since Twis do not have the “l”sound in their parlance. They belong to the subgroup known as “r-Akans”. In this regard, words like blade, underwear, primary, black, and clap sound like braid, “underwell”, “plamill”, “brack”, and “crap”. Occasionally, words and phrases like “whatever”, “shout-out”, “get out” may sound like “hwaleva”, “sharrout”, and “gerrout” respectively. There is a speculation that speakers of this type of accent cannot pronounce the word “parallelogram”.

THE PECULIAR “W” SOUND

The inward “w” glide is another feature peculiar to speakers of the Twi English accent. This feature, though noticeable, is relatively difficult for non-speakers of the Akan accent to imitate. “W” before “i” sounds take an unusually deeper glide in pronunciation than the ordinary Ghanaian English accent.  Words such as winner, with, will, winter, weak usually take on a “y-w” sound, causing the words to sound like “ywinnah”, “ywif”, “ywill”, “ywintah”, “yweek”. Words such as what, whatever, wheat, wheel, among others has a unique “w-h” merger, making these words sound like “hot”, “hwaleva”, “hweet”, “hweel” respectively.

THE “ER” SOUND

In many varieties of English, it is a basic rule to have “er” pronounced with an “a” sound. With the Twi accent, this is not always the case. Words with “er” at their ends have rather an “e” sound at the end especially after a “t”. Hence, letter sounds like “letteh”, Peter sounds like “Peeteh”, just to mention a few.  

THE “TH” SOUND

This is another pronounce feature found chiefly among people within this category. Many a time, “th” at the end of words requires English speakers to sandwich their tongues between their front teeth while pushing air through their mouths. People with Twi English accent tend to avoid this complete. Rather, this feature is replaced with the “f” sound, causing words like “with” to sound like “wiff”.

A few other words that may not be particularly categorized are also mispronounced; one is likely to be pronounced like “wain”, and hundred “hundred”. Though relatively uncommon, the Twi accent is also found around areas inhabited by Adangbes who do not trace their linguistic lineage to Akans.

THE GHANAIAN ENGLISH ACCENT

How to speak in a way that commands attention, and inspires and motivates others to take action is a matter of great import today. Why so? well, in the class, you may be heard as a leader; at your workplace you may be taken more seriously at meetings, the projected confidence in your speech may help you get a promotion, or at best increase your sales; at seminars, you may keep your audiences well-engaged when giving your presentations; or even at a shop, it may help avoid having people ask you to repeat yourself.

"I don't like the way I speak", "My friends make fun of the way I pronounce certain words", "I don't think my boss will ever give me the chance to give a presentation" are some of the common phrases you hear where speech is concerned. The truth is, few of us- if any- are entirely satisfied with our speech. Many a time, we have found ourselves drooling to stupor over how fluid, and smooth-flowing the speeches of certain presenters or speakers are. Granted, unfortunately not everyone is born with that captivating voice that makes people sit and listen. However, there is good news! Everyone can learn how to speak in a clear, smooth, and attractive way. The first step is to learn what kind of accent you have.

So what is an accent? An accent is a mode of pronunciation characteristic to or distinctive of a particular person, group or locality. In Ghana, quite a number of English accents abound. There is the General/ Neutral Ghanaian Accent, Ashanti Accent, Ga Accent, Ewe Accent, and Northern Accent. These accents have been heavily influenced by factors such as colonization, social or regional background, media influence, and native language, among others. 

The General/ Neutral Ghanaian Accent

As the name suggests, this speech pattern does not particularly demonstrate one’s regional background, yet it is heavily influenced by the phonetic habits of our native languages. The General Ghanaian Accent, like British Received Pronunciation (RP) and most standard language varieties of many other societies, has never been the accent of the entire nation. However, it has become widely spoken in many Ghanaian films, TV series, national news, commercial ads, and the nation's radio broadcasts. This type of accent is prevalent around the southern regions of Ghana where urbanizaton thrives progressively. Examples of such cities include Accra, Cape Coast, Tema, to mention a few. Even though closely related to the British pronunciation, there is still a violent contrast between the two. For anyone barraged with conflicting views as to what the General Ghanaian accent sounds like, below is a guide.

• Verbs ending in ‘-ate’ are usually have their pronunciation stress on the last syllable

Eg.Imitate/IM.i.tate/ becomes /im.i.TATE/

• Words ending in ‘-al’ and ‘an’ do not have a silent ‘a’ pronuciation

Eg. Global/glow.bl/ becomes /glowb.al/

• Words with long vowel sounds are pronounced with a relatively shorter vowel sounds

Eg. Heart /ha:t/ becomes /hat/ which sounds homophonous with hat

• Words ending in ‘-et’ have an ‘et’ and not an ‘it’ sound

Eg. Market/ma:k.it/ becomes /ma.ket/, and bucket/buh.kit/ becomes /buh.ket/ 

• Words ending in ‘-mour’ are usually pronounced with an ‘or’ sound

Eg. Glamour /glam.ah/ and tumour /tew.mah/ become /glam.or/ and /tew.mor/