Akuapem dialect
Dialect of Akan in Ghana
title: "Akuapem dialect" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["kwa-languages", "languages-of-ghana", "akan-people"] description: "Dialect of Akan in Ghana" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akuapem_dialect" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Dialect of Akan in Ghana ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Akuapem |
| nativename | Akuapem |
| states | Ghana |
| ethnicity | Akuapem |
| speakers | 626,000 |
| date | 2013 |
| ref | |
| fam7 | Akan |
| fam6 | Central Tano |
| fam5 | Tano |
| fam4 | Potou–Tano |
| fam3 | Kwa |
| fam2 | Atlantic–Congo |
| familycolor | Niger-Congo |
| agency | Akan Orthography Committee |
| script | Latin |
| ietf | tw-akuapem |
| glottorefname | Akuapem |
| glotto | akua1239 |
| isoexception | dialect |
| :: |
| name = Akuapem | nativename = Akuapem | states = Ghana | ethnicity = Akuapem | speakers = 626,000 | date = 2013 | ref = | fam7 = Akan | fam6 = Central Tano | fam5 = Tano | fam4 = Potou–Tano | fam3 = Kwa | fam2 = Atlantic–Congo | familycolor = Niger-Congo | agency = Akan Orthography Committee | script = Latin | ietf = tw-akuapem | glottorefname = Akuapem | glotto = akua1239 | isoexception = dialect
Akuapem, also known as Akuapim, Akwapem Twi, and Akwapi, is one of the literary dialects of the Akan language, along with Asante (with which it is collectively known as Twi) and Fante, with which it is mutually intelligible. There are 626,000 speakers of Akuapem, mainly concentrated in Ghana and southeastern Cote D'Ivoire. It is the historical literary and prestige dialect of Akan, having been chosen as the basis of the Akan translation of the Bible.
Etymology
The name Akuapem is thought to derive from either Akan nkoa apem ("thousand subjects") or akuw-apem ("thousand companies").
History
Akuapem's orthography was first developed by missionaries at the Gold Coast Basel Mission in 1842, but its written history begins in 1853 with the publication of two grammars, the German Elemente des Akwapim Dialects der Odshi Sprache and the English Grammatical Outline and Vocabulary of the Oji Language with especial reference to the Akwapim Dialect, both written by Hans Nicolai Riis, nephew of the Gold Coast Basel Mission's founder Andreas Riis. These would not be followed in the bibliography of Akuapem writing until the translation of the New Testament.
Akuapem was chosen as a representative dialect for Akan because the missionaries at Basel felt it a suitable compromise. Christaller, who had himself learned Akyem but believed Akuapem was the better choice, described the issue, and its solution, in the introduction to his 1875 Grammar of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi:It [Akuapem] is an Akan dialect influenced by Fante, steering in the middle course between other Akan dialects and Fante in sounds, forms and expressions; it admits peculiarities of both branches as far as they do no contradict each other, and is, therefore, best capable of being enriched from both sides.
Bible
Akuapem's history as a literary dialect originates with its selection to serve as the basis of the Akan translation of the New Testament, published in 1870 with a second edition in 1878, and the entire Bible, published in 1871. Both were written by the Gold Coast Basel Mission, principally by German missionary and linguist Johann Gottlieb Christaller and native Akan linguists and missionaries David Asante, Theophilus Opoku, Jonathan Palmer Bekoe, and Paul Keteku.
Despite the publication of the Bible, Akan literacy would not be widespread among the Akan for some time, nor even among the European colonizers. For instance, when British officer Sir Garnet Wolseley, who was and still is known in Ghana as "Sargrenti" (a corruption of "Sir Garnet"), began his campaign into Ghana during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War in 1873, he intended to address his summons to war to Asante king Kofi Karikari in English and Asante, only to find that, to their knowledge, "no proper written representation of the Fante or Asante dialect existed", delaying the dispatch of the summons for almost two weeks; all this even though an Akuapem New Testament had existed for three years and the entire Bible for two.
Grammar and dictionary
Christaller's A Grammar of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi (1875) and A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi (1881), written with reference to Akuapem, remain the definitive academic grammar and dictionary of Twi, despite the dialects' orthography, vocabulary, and grammar having changed in the century since their publication.
Phonology
Consonants
::data[format=table] | Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | Nasal | voiced | labialized | Stop/ affricate | voiced | aspirated | labialized | Fricative | voiceless | labialized | Approximant | Tap/flap | Trill | Lateral | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ~ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ~ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::
Vowels
Akuapem dialect has a ten-vowel system with a two-way distinction based on what has traditionally been analyzed as advanced tongue root, but which may be more accurately described as an expanded pharynx. ::data[format=table]
| Front | Central | Back | Close | +ATR | –ATR | Mid | +ATR | –ATR | Open | +ATR | –ATR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
Front vowels additionally show a distinction in duration, where –ATR front vowels are shorter than their +ATR counterparts.
Tone
Twi has at least five tones:
- High tone: H
- Mid tone: M
- Low tone: L
- Rising tone: R
- Falling tone: F
However, when writing Twi using the Latin script, tone marks are not used.
Diphthongs
Twi contains the diphthongs , , , , , , , and either or .
Proverbs
In his 1865 collection, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton published over 250 Twi (Oji) proverbs and sayings with English translations, taken from Hans Nicolaus Riis's Grammatical Outline and Vocabulary of the Oji-language published in 1854. (Riis, nephew of Andreas Riis, went to Ghana as a missionary in 1845.) Here are some of those sayings:
- "Wo te adur-a ebi ka w'ano." "If you lay poison (i.e. attempt to poison others), some will touch your mouth." (#2)
- "Sika ben wo-a, ehoa." "When gold comes near to you it glistens (i.e. an alluring object placed before the eyes stimulates desire)." (#9)
- "Ohi enni ni yonku." "A poor man has no friend." (#18)
- "Oduacen se, nea 'ko ne yem no, enni nede, na nea vo n'afonnom no, enye nedea." "The monkey says that which has gone into his belly is his, but what is in his mouth is not his (i.e. any external possession is uncertain, however well secured)." (#27)
References
References
- {{e18. aka. Akan
- "Akan".
- (1968). "A Phonology of Akan: Akuapem, Asante, Fante". UC Press.
- African 671, University of Wisconsin-Madison Students in. "About Akan (Twi)". UW Press Journals.
- Christaller, Johann Gottlieb. (1875). "A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tshi Chwee, Twi Based on the Akuapem Dialect with Reference to the Other (Akan and Fante) Dialects". Basel evang. missionary society.
- Ofosu-Appiah, L. H.. (1998). "Christaller, Johannes Gottlieb".
- Gilbert, Michelle. (1997). "'No Condition Is Permanent': Ethnic Construction and the Use of History in Akuapem". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.
- (1995). "Language guide (Akuapem-Twi version).". Bureau of Ghana Languages.
- Christaller, Johann G.. (1881). "A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi". Basel.
- Reindorf, Carl Christian. (1895). "History of the Gold Coast and Asante 2nd edition".
- Debrunner, H. W.. (1967). "A History of Christianity in Ghana".
- Ofosu-Appiah, L. H.. (1997). "The Encyclopaedia Africana Dictionary of African Biography". Reference Publications.
- Gocking, Roger. (2005). "The History of Ghana". Greenwood.
- Christaller, Johann Gottlieb. (1875). "A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tshi Chwee, Twi Based on the Akuapem Dialect ...". Printed for the Basel evang. missionary society.
- (2017). "An acoustic-articulatory study of bilingual vowel production: Advanced tongue root vowels in Twi and tense/lax vowels in Ghanaian English". Journal of Phonetics.
- Burton, Richard (1865). ''[https://archive.org/details/witandwisdomfro01burtgoog/page/n98/mode/2up?view=theater Wit and Wisdom from West Africa]''. pp. 65-130.
- [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008674990 ''Grammatical Outline and Vocabulary of the Oji-language'']
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