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.