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The Akan language belongs to the Kwa language family. It is spoken in Ghana, and is made up of a group of similar languages which are mutually intelligible. Among the twelve dialects are Ashanti, Fante, Akuapem, Akyem, Twi, Kwahu and Brong.
The Akan language is one of the primary government-sponsored languages in Ghana.
The language came to South America, notably Suriname with the slaves. Escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname still use a form of this language, including the custom of naming children the day of the week that they were born e.g. Kwasi (for a boy) or Kwasiba (girl) born on a Sunday. In Suriname also the Anansi spider stories are well known.
According to work done by P K Agbedor of CASAS , Mfantse and Twi (together known as Akan) belong to Cluster 1 of the speech forms of Ghana. Clusters are defined by the level of mutual intelligibility. The Abron(Bono) and Wasa dialects are considered part of this cluster.
Precisely Cluster 1 comprises:
Akan (Niger-Congo Atlantic Congo Volta Congo Kwa Nyo Potou-Tano Tano Central)
Abron (Niger-Congo Atlantic Congo Volta Congo Kwa Nyo Potou-Tano Tano Central Akan)
Wasa (Niger-Congo Atlantic Congo Volta Congo Kwa Nyo Potou-Tano Tano Central Akan)
Cluster 1 may better be named r-Akan (mainly Twi, Fante, Akuapem, Akyem, Wasa, Bono, Asen, Akwamu, Kwahu spoken mainly in Ghana, parts of Togo) which do not explicitly have the letter l in their original proper use. On the other hand l-Akan, refers to the Akan cluster comprising Nzema, Baule, and other dialects spoken mainly in the Ivory Coast, whose use of the letter r in proper usage is very rare.
External links
Wikipedia articles written in this language are located at the
Akan language Wikipedia
Dictionary of Standard Written r-Akan (http://kasa.ghanathink.org)
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