I confessed in my first "work journal" to Dr. Yemi that when choosing this program, I never really took the language portion seriously. I figured I'd do what I would have to do, finish whatever assignments, and be done with it. I figured that people would speak English, and that would be fine.
Well was I wrong. Not only do people not speak English, in fact, despite it being the "official" language, less than 20% of Ghanaians speak it. I've discovered that learning Twi has been one of the most enriching aspects of this whole experience. I've connected more with this culture with some minimal Twi than I ever did in five months in China. Unlike the Chinese community I encountered, Ghanaians are more than eager to teach foreigners their language, and I've come to be surprised at how well I'm doing with it so far. And it's certainly not an easy language! A tonal language with two extra vowels and an array of consonant combinations and sounds can make Twi quite a feat. Tune "wɔ" wrong and you could go from "to have" to "to pound"....you can imagine the confusion. Nonetheless, just being able to ask for directions, bargain, and have short basic conversations has really been incredible.
This language is very beautiful, and very very powerful. So it is with great sadness to see it wither in front of our eyes. Unlike India or the U.S, Ghana did not become independent of Britain by revolution. Instead, the British seeing the dissent brewing all across Africa, "prepared" the country for independence over several years. Doing so meant creating a class of "elites" that would be their Black counterparts and rule over every aspect of the country. Giving scholarships to study all across Britain, they trained Ghanaian doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians and other leaders. They learned the British ways, became highly educated and very rich, and became the epitome of everything every Ghanaian could hope for themselves and their children. "Independence" was simply handing the reigns over, and the White man leaving, but really the "British" stayed.
Over 50 years after independence, to a very clear extent, this still exists. The people that control schools, towns, health are usually trained in Britain (or America). All those highly educated, the leaders, and models and idols of all children are "colonial" in their ways. With that, Twi, Ewe, Fante, and all other traditional languages are termed "vernacular". (Twi is only spoken only by about 40% of people, there is no actual main language everyone speaks, it is all very regional). They've almost completely taken it out of schools, emphasizing that English-only is the only way to succeed, and "vernacular" is just that, vernacular. Parents in general support the erasing of their language out of schools- seeing it as a hindrance to their child's success.
So despite all this interesting, complex, and powerful grammar (just imagine if all of our syllables had three different meanings, we had six extra verb tenses and our sentence order was almost entirely reversed), few people know how to properly write Twi. Even the most educated people term it "vernacular", not seeing the damage they make to their own culture in doing so, it's a real heartbreaker.
However, there is some hope for improvement. Today, the inserting of traditional language back in schools is highly debated, and scholars, such as Dr. Yemi fight to preserve it and teach it. Even the government is realizing the cultural damage of loss and has put out pamphlets and books to preserve traditional language. Overall, it is up to the Ghanaian people to embrace their heritage, the astonishing wealth of history and tradition in this place and fight to preserve it. I won't go on this topic too much, because it's really all part of the bigger issue of modernization v. westernization that I'll put in an upcoming post. So keep reading!
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