Английская Википедия:Ga language
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Distinguish Шаблон:For Шаблон:Lead too short Шаблон:Infobox language
Ga is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra, by the Ga people. There are also some speakers in Togo, Benin and Western Nigeria. It has a phonemic distinction between three vowel lengths.
Classification
Ga is a Kwa language, part of the Niger–Congo family. It is very closely related to Adangme, and together they form the Ga–Dangme branch within Kwa.
Ga is the predominant language of the Ga people, an ethnic group of Ghana. Ethnic Ga family names (surnames) include Owoo, Lartey, Nortey, Aryee, Lamptey, Tetteh, Ankrah, Tetteyfio, Laryea, Ayitey, Okine, Bortey, Quarshie, Quaye, Quaynor, Ashong, Kotei, Clottey, Nai, Sowah, Odoi, Maale, Ako, Adjetey, Annang, Yemoh,and Abbey.
Geographic distribution
Ga is spoken in south-eastern Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. It has relatively little dialectal variation. Although English is the official language of Ghana, Ga is one of 16 languages in which the Bureau of Ghana Languages publishes material.
Phonology
Consonants
Ga has 31 consonant phonemes.
| Labial | Dental | Postalveolar and palatal |
Velar | Labial- velar |
Glottal | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialized | Plain | Lab.v | Plain | Lab. | |||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋ͡m | |||||||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | tʃ | dʒ | tʃʷ | dʒʷ | k | ɡ | kʷ | ɡʷ | k͡p | ɡ͡b | ||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʃʷ | h | hʷ | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | ɥ | w | ||||||||||||
- Шаблон:IPA is an allophone of Шаблон:IPA which occurs before nasals and is represented with its own digraph in writing.
- Шаблон:IPA may be realised as Шаблон:IPA when between a consonant and vowel
- Шаблон:IPA has an allophone Шаблон:IPA before nasal vowels
Vowels
Ga has seven oral vowels and five nasal vowels. All of the vowels have three different vowel lengths: short, long or extra long (the latter appears only in the simple future and the simple past negative forms).
Tones
Ga has two tones, high and low. Like many West African languages, it has tone terracing.
Phonotactics
The syllable structure of Ga is Шаблон:Transl, where the second phoneme of an initial consonant cluster can only be Шаблон:IPA and a final consonant may only be a (short or long) nasal consonant, e.g. ekome, "one", V-CV-CV; kakadaŋŋ, "long", CV-CV-CVC; mli, "inside", CCV. Ga syllables may also consist solely of a syllabic nasal, for example in the first syllable of ŋshɔ, "sea".
Writing system
Ga was first written in about 1764, by Christian Jacob Protten (1715–1769), who was the son of a Danish soldier and a Ga woman.[1][2][3][4] Protten was a Gold Coast Euro-African Moravian missionary and educator in the eighteenth century. In the mid-1800s, the Germany missionary, Johannes Zimmermann (1825–1876), assisted by the Gold Coast historian, Carl Christian Reindorf (1834–1917) and others, worked extensively on the grammar of the language, published a dictionary and translated the entire Bible into the Ga language.[5][6][7][8] The orthography has been revised a number of times since 1968, with the most recent review in 1990.
The writing system is a Latin-based alphabet and has 26 letters. It has three additional letter symbols which correspond to the IPA symbols. There are also eleven digraphs and two trigraphs. Vowel length is represented by doubling or tripling the vowel symbol, e.g. 'a', 'aa' and 'aaa'. Tones are not represented. Nasalisation is represented after oral consonants where it distinguishes between minimal pairs.
The Ga alphabet is: Aa, Bb, Dd, Ee, Ɛɛ, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ŋŋ, Oo, Ɔɔ, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Yy, Zz
The following letters represent sounds which do not correspond with the same letter as the IPA symbol (e.g. B represents Шаблон:IPA):
- J j - Шаблон:IPA
- Y y - Шаблон:IPA
Digraphs and trigraphs:
- Gb gb - Шаблон:IPA
- Gw gw - Шаблон:IPA
- Hw hw - Шаблон:IPA
- Jw jw - Шаблон:IPA
- Kp kp - Шаблон:IPA
- Kw kw - Шаблон:IPA
- Ny ny - Шаблон:IPA
- Ŋm ŋm - Шаблон:IPA
- Ŋw ŋw - Шаблон:IPA (an allophone rather than a phoneme)
- Sh sh - Шаблон:IPA
- Ts ts - Шаблон:IPA
- Shw shw - Шаблон:IPA
- Tsw tsw - Шаблон:IPA
See also
Footnotes
References
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite thesis
External links
- My First GaDangme Dictionary kasahorow
- Short tutorial on counting in the Ga language
- Young boy speaking about Ghanaian tribes in Ga language
Шаблон:Languages of Ghana Шаблон:Kwa languages Шаблон:Authority control
