THE GHANAIAN PEOPLE


Ghana as it stands currently has a little over 70 languages being spoken. The languages are in 9 major families which have being fully detailed in the book KNOW GHANA BETTER. The 9 major language families have words that cut across the various languages in them making all the Ghanaian languages inter-related.

The 9 language families are :

There are few Afro-asiatic languages like Hausa and Fulfulde (Fulani) as well as Indo-European and Semitic languages spoken in Ghana. These are due to colonisation and religion influences.

The 9 major ethnic groups can be broken down to about 73 tribes which each having its unique language and even dialects. Most of the dialects are much closer to their mother languages hence, one may not lay much emphasis on them.

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES IN GHANA: Indo-European languages are those languages mostly from Europe that was acquired mainly through colonisation and of course, English is the de-facto Indo-European language that is used throughout Ghana. Then again is the co-official French language due to the neighbours of Ghana being Francophones.

Other Indo-European languages that have been adopted and their usage are widespread over Ghana are Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese. Those not mentioned may not be much valued as comparee to the afore-mentioned languages.

SEMITIC LANGUAGES: Of course, Ghana is a very religious nation thus, Arabic is the widely used Semitic language in Ghana followed by Hebrew.

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Ghanaians are very welcoming and peace loving people such that although there are differences among the ethnic groups, they have learnt to live in unity and in harmony. Numerous tourist sites and festivals are recorded in Ghana and they have all been detailed in the book KNOW GHANA BETTER 

Ghana has regions and they are 16 in number. These regions serve administrative purposes as well as cultural and linguistic boundaries. There are more so keep following this blog as we explore Ghana. You can subscribe to get notifications whenever new posts are published.

You can also contact the author on: knowghanabetter@gmail.com for further assistance, enquiries and help.


Huniah Tetteh with chiefs at Akposokubi




Learn the history of the Ga people here



Learn about the Guan people here

I am Huniah Tetteh, born 10th October 1995 and a lover of languages and ethnicity studies. I love animals and traveling and ready to do everything to push the study of languages to the world

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