My country Ghana has over 46 dialects spoken all across the country and perhaps a few more that are not documented. In a recent conversation with a friend on social media I was inclined to give my response to an observation made by writing in his local dialect, Ga.
Instead of saying thank you in English, I wrote in Ga “Oyiwaladon” while thank you in my language means “medaasi” the same response is more in depth in the Ga language. The response takes it further to make certain declarations on the respondent.
It talks about life, and the extension of it. The statement is an invocation of a certain exoteric order. I am making an effort to understand why the Ga’s respond in this manner which is different from any other tribe.
I delved a little deeper to understand the origin of the language. Ga is classified as Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as yet undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south eastern part of Ivory coast, across Southern Ghana, and in central Togo.
The name was introduced in 1895 by Gottlob Krause and derives from the word for ‘people’ (Kwa) in many of these languages, as illustrated by Akan names.
It’s interesting to note that the Ga language is a western representative o the western Kwa subfamily of languages within the Niger-Congo family. It has a closer relationship to Yoruba in its tonality and cognates than to the immediately neighboring sub family of Akan languages and an even closer relationship to its eastern neighbor, Ewe. It’s understandable why it’s similar to Yoruba. I think part of this history is due to the fact that the Ga’s had migrated from Ketu in Nigeria and settled in Ghana. For me, what remains interesting is the composition of the words.
I have noticed how the Ga’s refer to the divine presence of God. Ataa Naa Ny)m) which translates to represent both male and female. Ataa which means father, elderly and Naa referring to queen. So again, my analysis is why they chose to use the male figure to represent the elderly, father and refer to the female as queen in the God head?
