The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. Research Review MS Vol.4 No.1, 1966 THE MULTILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE ADA DISTRICT M.E. Krcpp Dakubu 1. DffBDDXTICN are rather small villages (see Table 1). The Ala District is an administrative Almost every village along the beach ves district of Eastern Rsgion of Ghana, surveyed, but in inland areas such ccrrplete which more or less coincides geographi- coverage was not possible. The sanple was cally with the traditional Ada state. constructed according to a quota, the para- It is bounded by the Volta River on the nBters being age, sex and degree of formal east, the sea on the south. To the west education, fto one under the age of 15 was it is banded by the Ga-Oangbe District interviewed. which traditionally speaks the same Table 2 shows the structure of the sanple language as the Ala District, nanely in terms of the first two of these para- Dangme (also known as Atengne, Dangbe, meters. It is rather more evenly distributed Adangbe). To the north its closest than the general population, because of the neighbours are Be-speaking. The Ala method of selection. The relatively large area is traditionally regarded as spea- proportion of respondents from the oldest king a distinctive dialect of Dangne, age group is probably relatable to the and although there is considerable amount of leisure tine people have to spend internal variation, (Apronti and Dakubu, answering questionnaires. The ratio of men 1972) this view can be accepted. This paper is concerned with a portion to women in the sanple is also not a reflec- of the data collected as part of a tion of the structure of the population at sociolinguistic survey of the Dangns- large. 27.0 of the sanple - 37.4 of the speaking area, which was carried out in males and 15.7 of the ftmales - had been to connection with the multidisciplinary school. This is somewhat lower than in the Dangne Area Survey of the Institute of population at large, and probably reflects African Studies, Legon. The AJa District the disproportionate amber of older people. was the first to De surveyed. The data exMined herein were collected by Dangne- The Ada District is almost wholly speaking studentSLin the long vacations rural. Big AJa is the focus of the of 1972 and 1973.2 I atterrpt an initial traditional social and political examination of the district as a multi- organization, and Ate Fba is the current lingual area, showing the relative administrative centre and the home of status of the various languages spoken such institutions as the Ate Secondary within the district. The paper is School and the govemnent-run Health limited to a definition of the broad Post. Otherwise the main occupations are linguistic configuration of the area. The data are drawn from a total of fishing and fish processing and trading, thirty-three localities, most of which farming and salt extraction and trading. 35 TABLE I THE SAMPLE - GEOGRAPHICAL Villages Surveyed No. Respondents Population 15 and over (1970 Census)* Coast: East: Afrive 30 105 Azizanya 31 422 Otrokpe 48 230 Totimekope 46 591 Oeanseykope 27 352 Anyakpor 26 113 Patunkope 17 124 Adedetsekope 22 270 Songutsoekpa 9 154 Elevanyo 35 262 Puteh (Upper + Lower) 81 546 Totope 29 331 West: Lolonya 56 561 Goi 74 882 Akp^abanya 65 771 Anyamam 77 964 Wektmagbe 35 391 Total 708 7069 Ada: Big Ada 67 2282 Ada Foah (Upper + Lower) 119 2394 Total 186 4676 Inland: Togbloku 49 477 Kunyenya 17 ? Bedeku 41 322 Tansatoku 34 646 Dogdbcm 18 296 Adokope 20 492 Bonikope 54 156 Koluedor 33 521 Toflokpo 84 215 Agbedrafor 20 Sege Junction 53 620 Sege Nakomkope 51 186 Koni 17 ? Luta 11 ? Total 502 over 3741 Total 1396 Entire District: 27,374 * ? indicates that the locality was not distinguished in the Census report. 36 TABLE 2 S1MFLE - BY AGE ANr SEX Coast Adas Inland Total Age M F M F M F M F 15 - 19 . 50 36 9 14 44 35 105 85 65 20 - 24 52 14 18 41 39 120 109 25 -• 29 55 53 13 10 35 39 103 102 30 - 34 35 34 7 8 26 23 68 65 35 - 39 33 27 5 '9 18 21 56 57 40 - 44 32 23 ia 7 18 17 61 47 45 - 49 24 23 5 5 17 15 46 43 50 - 54 23 23 7 6 17 12 47 41 55 - 59 21 33 8 7 19 16 48 56 60+ 38 28 13 10 26 24 7 62 Total 376 332 92 94 261 241 729 667 708 186 502 1396 For purposes of ccrrparison the district lingual ism among the unschooled on the is divided into three. The Adas are coast frcm Ada to Prampram, undertaken treated as a geographical unit in virtue as part of the survey, have provided of being relatively urbanized as well as tentative confirmation of this hypothesis being a socio-political centre for the Afrive is actually on an island in the entire district. The coast and the Volta opposite Ada, but as a fishing inland villages are distinguished, in village is included here with the coastal virtue of the different occupations of villages. their inhabitants, namely fishing plus sons fanning versus fanning, "me coast is further subdivided into an eastern 2. A UNOJISTIC PROFILE section, between the Volta and the Songaw Lagoon, and a western section, 2.1 DC STATUS OF HN9C frcm the western side of the Songaw to Dangns, and in particular the Ada Wakumagbe. It is hypothesized that the dialect of Dangie, is unquestionably the Lagoon, which is a large one, is a major linguistic vehicle of the district at natural barrier to comunication, and least as far as this sample can show. For that somewhat different configurations well over 90% of all respondents, the Ada may occur on either side of it. Dialect dialect was "home-town" language (ma gbi), study and an investigation of multi- the first language learned in life, and the 37 language spoken best at the time of tne directions. survey. The figure is slightly lower in, Vhen the language of ethnic identity, the the /Was than in the other sections of the- ma gbi, is not the same as the first langua- sanple: ge learned, it means (usually) that a shift Coast: 688 97.1* has occurred in the primary linguistic Adas: 172 92.4% patterns not of an individual but of gene- Inland: 483 96.2% rations in a family group, or at any rate Total: 1343 96.2% between the individual and one of his Exceptions to this pattern seem to be parents: an individual learned one language clustered mainly around Big Ada and the first, although one or both parents spoke a larger settlements east of the lagoon. different one. The sanple showed one or Anong the fifty-three individuals involved, two shifts of this kind betwen Ga and Ada, one or more of an individual's home-town Ewe and Ada, Ada and another Dangne dialect, language, first language learned in life, in both directions, one shift from Ada to or the language currently spoKen the best Akan, one from Ningo to Aten, and one from was another dialect of Dangne: Ningo, Shai, Fula to Ada. Krobo or Osudoku; or another southern in no case were more than two languages •Ghanaian language, namely Ga, Akan or 6*>; or dialects involved in patterns of shift. or another West African language, namely That is, ethnic, first and best language Hausa. One individual reported her "hone- were never all different. If the language town" language to be Fula, although her of ethnic identity was the same as the first language and the language she thought first language learned, then the language she spoke best were the Ada dialect of currently spoken best might be one of these Dangne. or a different one, but if they were diffe- For twenty of the fifty-four, the Ada rent, then the current best language was dialect of Dangne ves the language they now spoke best, but twenty-one were completely always the same as one of them. It the non-Ada, in that neither ethnic, first nor language of ethnic identity and the first best language was Ada. This included nine language were not the same, then either the Dangmes, for whom all three categories of first language •continued in later life'as language were the Osudoku (1), Shai £3), best language or there was a "return" to Ningo (4) or Krabo (1) dialect. Four had the language of ethnic identity. Be, three had Ga and one had Akan in each In almost all cases, the "home-town" category. Four, living in Ada Foa, had language or language of ethnic identity can Hausa for all three. be interpreted as the language of' the In several cases the first language previous generation, and specifically as learned and the currently best language the language of the respondent's father, were not the same, indicating a shift in fine Dangns are essentially patrilineal in the linguistic behaviour of the individual, social organization.) The exceptions to either frcrn one dialect of Dangne to another this are insignificant statistically for or from one language to another. Five this sanple, but interesting as indicators people had shifted from the Ningo dialect, of socio-linguistic patterns that.