DOES THE GA & DANGME LANGUAGES OF GHANA HAVE DIALECTS?

Many people ask this question if the Ga language has a dialect and the answer is "yes." It has dialects not just a dialect but then, the Ga dialects are not so distinct as it is seen with other languages. As it is with every other language, the Ga language together with its sister language Dangme developed from a proto language which we shall call Proto GaDangme. 

This Proto GaDangme language would eventually split up over time into Old Ga and Old Dangme. The old Dangme areas spanned from Ada to as far as somewhere Gbugbla whereas the Old Ga territories spanned to Weija. Now , Kpone, in the past, was a mixed Ga and Dangme territory where Old Ga and Old Dangme speakers lived side by side. 

Old Ga was closely related to Old Dangme with just pointable differences. Old Ga evolved to modern Ga and old Dangme evolved to Modern Dangme.

Modern Dangme has about 5 dialects; the Ada dialect, Nugo dialect, Gbugbla dialect, Klo dialect and Shai-Osu dialect. Let us see a rather opened evaluation of these Dangme dialects

• The Ada dialect has lots of Ewe influence in it.
• The Klo dialect depending on the area spoken has both Akan and Ewe influencing it.
• The Osu dialect seems to be very conservative although it has its fair share of influence
• The Nugo dialect together with the Osu dialect also maintains a high level of purity but withsome minor variations among them in terms of their non-core vocabulary.
• The Gbugbla dialect seems to be a hybrid of Ga and Dangme. It bridges the Ga and Dangme languages in the sense that, it looks very Ga and looks very Dangme with no clear cut. It appears to be at the point where the Ga and Dangme languages meet

The Ga language has its fair share of dialectisation as you could pin point from above. The Ga dialects have been greatly influenced by standard Ga such that, most people tend to bridge their native Ga dialects with standard Ga.

From La (Labadi - Accra), they appear to speak the same Ga variant. Teshie and Nungua also speak the same variant while Tema and Kpone speak the same variant. The advantage about speaking Ga is, every Ga people knows standard Ga and the Ga dialects are not too different so you can easily understand the dialect from any Ga community unlike in Dangme where the differences can make understanding a bit difficult.