Understanding the Twi Language & Providing Professional Twi Interpreters and Translators
Global Interpreting understands the importance of working in the Twi language. For over 10 years, Global Interpreting has worked with the Twi language as well as hundreds of other from around the word. We are a one stop full language service provider. Offering Over the Phone, Video Remote, Face to Face, Transcription, Document and Website Translation in 150 languages including American Sign Language (ASL) nation and worldwide.
Akan, or Twi-Fante, is the principal native language of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of that country, by about 40% of the population, and to a lesser extent across the border in eastern Côte d'Ivoire. Three dialects have been developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies, Asante, Akuapem (together called Twi), and Fante, which despite being mutually intelligible were inaccessible in written form to speakers of the other standards. In 1978 the Akan Orthography Committee established a common orthography for all of Akan, which is used as the medium of instruction in primary school by speakers of several other Akan languages such as Anyi, Sefwi, Ahanta (but not Nzema), as well as the Guang languages.
Because the Akan dialects' phonologies differ slightly, Asante’s dialect will be used to represent Akan. Asante, like all Akan dialects, involves extensive palatalisation, vowel harmony, and tone terracing.
The Akan dialects have fourteen to fifteen vowels: four to five "tense" vowels (Advanced tongue root, or +ATR), five "lax" vowels (Retracted tongue root, or −ATR), which are adequately but not completely represented by the seven-vowel orthography, and five nasal vowels, which are not represented at all. (All fourteen were distinguished in the Gold Coast script of the colonial era.) An ATR distinction in orthographic a is only found in some sub dialects of Fante, though not in the literary form; in Asante and Akuapem there are harmonic allophones of /a/, but neither is ATR.
Akan, or Twi-Fante, is the principal native language of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of that country, by about 40% of the population, and to a lesser extent across the border in eastern Côte d'Ivoire. Three dialects have been developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies, Asante, Akuapem (together called Twi), and Fante, which despite being mutually intelligible were inaccessible in written form to speakers of the other standards. In 1978 the Akan Orthography Committee established a common orthography for all of Akan, which is used as the medium of instruction in primary school by speakers of several other Akan languages such as Anyi, Sefwi, Ahanta (but not Nzema), as well as the Guang languages.
Because the Akan dialects' phonologies differ slightly, Asante’s dialect will be used to represent Akan. Asante, like all Akan dialects, involves extensive palatalisation, vowel harmony, and tone terracing.
The Akan dialects have fourteen to fifteen vowels: four to five "tense" vowels (Advanced tongue root, or +ATR), five "lax" vowels (Retracted tongue root, or −ATR), which are adequately but not completely represented by the seven-vowel orthography, and five nasal vowels, which are not represented at all. (All fourteen were distinguished in the Gold Coast script of the colonial era.) An ATR distinction in orthographic a is only found in some sub dialects of Fante, though not in the literary form; in Asante and Akuapem there are harmonic allophones of /a/, but neither is ATR.
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The Twi language is an important language worldwide. It is vital to understand the general nature and specific idiosyncrasies of Twi. For over 10 years Global Interpreting has provided outstanding Twi translators, over the phone, face to face and conference interpreters nation and worldwide.