Twi

[MillMaths]

I'm looking for learning resources on Twi the Internet. I can't find any at the moment. (Maybe I've not searched hard enough; I'll search harder when I have time.)

There is a sample text in Twi, with English translation, on this site.

[Sisyphe]

Have a look here. http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Twi Happy studies!

[księżycowy]

The FSI course Sisyphe linked to is your best resource, period.
There's also this textbook, but it's doesn't have audio, like the FSI course does.

I'm looking for learning resources on Twi the Internet. I can't find any at the moment. (Maybe I've not searched hard enough; I'll search harder when I have time.)

I tend to find, at least as far as African languages are concerned, the FSI site and the ERIC site tend to be the place for rare textbooks. Some of which are quite excellent. (Obviously both site have more then just African languages, but this thread is for an African language, so . . .)

The only unfortunate thing about ERIC is no audio.

I have a great link for Ewe and the FSI site also has Igbo, if anyone's interested.

[MillMaths]

Thanks!

I'm a bit tired now but I'll check out the sites tomorrow.

[księżycowy]

I have a great link for Ewe

Forgot the link:
http://www.iu.edu/~celtie//ewe_archive.html

[MillMaths]

Twi consonants
These are straightforward.

b	/b/
d	/d/
dw	/dʒ/
dwi	/dʑᶣi/
f	/f/
g	/g/
gw	/ɡʷ/
gyi	/dʑi/
h	/h/
hw	/hʷ/
hwi	/ɕᶣi/
hyi	/ɕi/
k	/kʰ/
kw	/kʷ/
kyi	/tɕʰi/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/, /ŋ/, /ɲ/
ng	/ŋŋ/
ngi	/ɲĩ/
nw	/ŋŋʷ/
nu	/ɲʷĩ/
nyi, nnyi	/ɲɲĩ/
p	/pʰ/
r	/r/
s	/s/
t	/tʰ/
ti	/tçi/
twi	/tɕᶣi/
w	/w/
wi	/ɥi/

[księżycowy]

Posting lessons, are we?

[MillMaths]

Yeah, I was going to do Twi vowels next, but I fell ill and didn't continue. Well, hopefully I'll be better and I can continue with the lessons.

[księżycowy]

Sorry to hear that.

And I'll keep on the look out for new posts. I have to admit that I find the languages of West Africa quite interesting. I was actually going to learn Twi at one point, but never got started.

[MillMaths]

Twi vowels
These are giving me a headache. First up, there are these things called Advanced Tongue Root (+ATR) and Retracted Tongue Root (−ATR). I still don't know why a distinction is made, but here they are (note the difference in their order from English vowels).

	+ATR	−ATR
i	/i/	—
e	/e/	/ɪ~e/
ɛ	—	/ɛ/
a	/æ~ɑ/	/ɑ/
ɔ	—	/ɔ/
o	/o/	/ʊ~o/
u	/u/	—

In addition, Twi vowels are contrasted by length, nasalization and tones. There are three tones: high, mid, and low. Tones can play an important role in distinguishing homographs, e.g. papa means "good" when pronounced with two high tones, "a palm-leaf fan" when pronounced with two low tones, and "father" when pronounced with a low tone followed by a high tone. And what exactly do these tones sound like? Well, I'd like to be able to say something like "the high tone is similar to the first tone in Mandarin", but, unfortunately, I can't. The tone system in Twi is complicated by a phenomenon called tone terracing. Basically it's a set of rules governing the absolute pitch of tones in normal speech – so, for example, if a low tone comes between two high tones, the second high tone is pronounced with a mid tone.

I still have a long, long way to go …

[MillMaths]

Some facts about Twi
Twi is a member of the Kwa group of the Niger–Congo family of African languages, and is the main language spoken in Ghana. There are three major dialects, all of which are mutually intelligible and share a common orthography developed by the Bureau of Ghana Languages: Akuapim, Ashanti, and Fanti. Sometimes the Akuapim dialect is taken to be "the" proper Twi dialect, due to the fact that it was the first Twi dialect used to translate the Bible. To avoid such favouritism, the term Akan may be used to designate the Twi language. This is indeed the practice followed by Wikipedia and Ethnologue, though Omniglot uses the name Twi.

[MillMaths]

Days of the week
In Ghana, it is a popular practice for children to be named after the day of the week on which they are born. For each day of the week, there is a corresponding boy’s name and girl’s name. The former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. for example, was named after Friday, being born on 8 April 1938.

day	name in Twi	boy’s name	girl’s name
Sunday	Kwasieda	Kwasi	Akosua
Monday	Dwoɔda	Kwadwo	Adwoa
Tuesday	Benada	Kwabena	Abenaa
Wednesday	Wukuoda	Kwaku	Akua
Thursday	Yawɔda	Yaw	Yaa
Friday	Fieda	Kofi	Afua
Saturday	Memeneda	Kwame	Amma

[księżycowy]

Interesting.

[MillMaths]

What's even more interesting is which day of the week the former Ghanainan president Kwame Nkrumah was born on. If his name is anything to go by, he should be born on a Saturday. But Wikipedia states his date of birth as 21 September 1909 – which was a Tuesday! These can't be both correct. Either Wikipedia has got his date of birth wrong, or his parents have given him the wrong name (so he should have been known as Kwabena Nkrumah instead).

[ILuvEire]

I wonder if this applies to the African diaspora as well--I've known several Kofis and Kwames, but I've never met anyone with any of the other names. But, you'd think if I know four Kofis, there'd be a Kwadwo in there somewhere...

[MillMaths]

Well, in the church I'm working in, we have a Pastor Yaw and a Pastor Resi (a variant of Kwasi). But you may be right: there seem to be more Kofis and Kwames than people with any of the other names. Maybe the naming system doesn't extend to the diaspora after all. Maybe African immigrants in other countries name their sons Kofi or Kwame because they think it's just one of a list of first names they can freely choose from. It's different in the case of Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah was born in a very traditional village in Ghana at the beginning of the 20th century, so it's not likely that his parents would be ignorant of village traditions.

[MillMaths]

Well, I've decided to take up the learning of Twi as a TAC 2012 challenge, so here is the thread. Lessons, etc will be posted there; this thread will now only be used for discussing the Twi language in general, culture Ghana, etc.

[MillMaths]

HAPPY GHANA INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Ghana achieved independence on 6 March 1957. Called Gold Coast as a British colony, the country adopted its present name, meaning “warrior”, immediately upon independence. It was the first sub-Saharan African nation (apart from South Africa) to be given independence from colonial rule.

[Meera]

Hey guys! My friend really wants to learn Twi (he's super into the African languages like Xhosa, Swahili, Zulu, etc) and he works with some Twi speaking people so he really wants to learn it. Anyway I'm thinking about getting him a book on Twi for Christmass, is there anything good for it? I looked on amazon and found this: http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Speak-Twi-Pr ... 1575866048 has anyone here used it? Or is there anything better for it?

[Itikar]

http://www.akan.org/akan_cd/ALIAKAN/course/U-Akan.html

Sophie, I don't know, whether you already know the site above. I have come across it this evening.
It seems really well done. The only problem is that the audio for the advanced units is missing.

I hope it can be useful for the other forum members interested in the language anyway.

PS
Thank you very much Sophie. Thanks to the posts of thine I found out Twi is the native language of a dear friend of mine.