| |
Introduction The Nkonya Lanugage | |||||||
|
About NkonyaIntroductionNkonya is a North Guang language in the Guang branch of the Volta-Comoé language group of the (New) Kwa branch of Niger-Congo. The Guang languages by and large, are spoken in Ghana in an area roughly semi-circular in shape to the south, east and north of the Akans. In the language itself, the language name is pronounced Nkunyá. A single speaker is an Okunyáyin with the plural being Nkunyáfɔ. The land where they live is also called Nkunyá. They live mainly in about 13 towns in the Volta Region, bordering on Lake Volta, between 7° 5" N and 7° 17" N and between 0° 15" E and 0° 22" E. This is an area along the Kpando-Worawora road from about 11 km north of Kpando up to (but not including) Kwamekrom, 34 km north of Kpando. There are about 20,000 people in the Nkonya area, of whom about 11,000 speak Nkonya as their first language. The majority of the non-Nkonya residents speak Ewe. The high proportion of non-Nkonya speakers to Nkonya speakers is a recent phenomenon. There are a large number of Nkonyas living outside Nkonya, perhaps as many as live in the traditional area. Most live in the larger urban areas of Ghana. Here's Nkonya within Ghana. Here is a map of Nkonya Towns.There are elementary schools in all the Nkonya towns, and junior secondary schools in most towns. There is a secondary school in Nkonya-Ntumda. Because of the relatively high level of formal education and the large number of Nkonyas living outside of Nkonya, bilingualism in Akan and Ewe is high among Nkonyas. There are not many non-Nkonyas who speak Nkonya as a second language. There is much lexical borrowing from Akan and a lesser amount from English and Ewe. There are two mutually intelligible Nkonya dialects. The Northern dialect is spoken in Wurupong and towns north of it; the Southern dialect is spoken from Tepo to the south end of Nkonya. Elderly Nkonyas report a greater mixing of the communities in recent years, and with greater communica-tion and intermarriage between the dialect communities, it would appear that the dialects are merging. This section (maybe a separate page) will contain a History
of Nkonya Language Project. Until then here is a picture of the Nkonya Language Team.
Until then, you can look at or print out the booklet we've published called Nkonya Spelling Rules. It's laid out to print as a booklet, so it's a little confusing to read on your computer screen, read the right side of the first page, the left side of the second page, etc., until you reach the end, then work from end to the beginning reading the opposite sides. The page numbers are at the bottom.Here are some of the things we've been doing:
The Nkonya Language web-site is a publication of the G.I.L.L.B.T. Nkonya Language Project Updated on 8-Oct-11 As you may have noticed, this web-page and site are under construction,here is my to-do list for this website |