Polylectal Description: Reflections on Experience in Ghana

M. E. Kropp Dakubu

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Chapter 13 Polylectal Description: Reflections on Experience in Ghana

In: Philosophical Foundations of the African Humanities through Postcolonial Perspectives

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M. E. Kropp Dakubu

M. E. Kropp Dakubu
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 254–274

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004392946_015

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Abstract

This chapter reflects on the ways in which variation has been accounted for in descriptions of several of the languages spoken in Ghana. It begins with a discussion of historical practice, with particular reference to grammars of Akan since 1849. It then considers the problems involved in developing polylectal grammars, that is, grammars that attempt to account for variety in a language whether geographical, social, or idiolectal, focusing mainly on languages the present author has personally worked on. In the south, Ga and Dangme are closely related and contiguous but clearly distinguished on linguistic grounds from their neighbors, principally Akan and Ewe, and from each other. Yet the problems of polylectal description are quite different for each. Ga has a great deal of variation that is difficult to define either linguistically or geographically, but no systematic dialect variation. Dangme, on the other hand, has dialect divisions for which linguistic, geographical, and political boundaries coincide quite well. In northern Ghana, however, Dagaare and Farefari, which are closely related but not contiguous, are internally complicated to varying degrees by fuzzy linguistic boundaries, wide gradations in inter-intelligibility, and political problems concerning what is to be included in a language. The problem is, on the whole, more severe in Dagaare than in Farefari. The organizers of the workshop for which this essay was originally written proposed a type scheme for polylectal grammars: the hierarchical model, the additive-sequential model, the additive-contrastive model, and the dynamic model. Reference is made to this scheme, in considering which type fits the various published grammars, and which (if any) seems preferable in a particular case. Overall, determination of lectal boundaries is seen as the defining problem.

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Philosophical Foundations of the African Humanities through Postcolonial Perspectives

Series: Cross/Cultures, Volume: 209

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004392946

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 12 Feb 2019

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Chapter 13 Polylectal Description: Reflections on Experience in Ghana

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Philosophical Foundations of the African Humanities through Postcolonial Perspectives

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