Fante dialect

Fante (Fanti: [ˈfɑnti]), also known as Fanti, Fantse, or Mfantse, is one of the four principal members of the Akan dialect continuum, along with Asante, Bono and Akuapem, the latter three collectively known as Twi, with which it is mutually intelligible.^[2][3] It is principally spoken in the central and southern regions of Ghana as well as in settlements in other regions in western Ghana, Ivory Coast, as well as in Liberia, Gambia and Angola.^[1]

Fante is the common dialect of the Fante people, whose communities each have their own subdialects, namely Agona, Anomabo, Abura and Gomoa,^[4] all of which are mutually intelligible. Schacter and Fromkin describe two main Fante dialect groups: Fante 1, which uses a syllable-final /w/ and thus distinguishes kaw ("dance") and ka ("bite"); and Fante 2, where these words are homophonous.^[2] A standardized form of Fante is taught in primary and secondary schools.^[1] Many Fantes are bilingual or bidialectal and most can speak Twi.^[5]

Notable speakers include Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson,^[6] Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang,^[7] former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan,^[8][9] and former Ghanaian presidents Kwame Nkrumah and John Atta Mills.^[10][11] Maya Angelou^[12][13] learned Fante as an adult during her stay in Ghana.

Today Fante is spoken by more than 6 million people in Ghana primarily in the Central and Western Regions. It is also widely spoken in Tema, where majority of the people in that city are native Fante speakers who were settled after the new port was built.

One striking characteristic of the Fante dialect is the level of English influence, including English loanwords and anglicized forms of native names, due both to British colonial influence and "to fill lexical and semantic gaps, for reasons of simplicity and also for prestige". Examples of such borrowings include rɛkɔso ("records"), rɔba "rubber", nɔma ("number"), kolapuse "collapse", and dɛkuleti "decorate".^[14] Native names are occasionally anglicized, such as "Mεnsa" becoming "Mensah" or "Atta" becoming "Arthur".^[15]