Swtiching and Borrowing in Ghanaian English
From a back issue of English Today:
Grammatical adaptation appears to be less
normative. My data contains adequate evidence
to show that the noun, for instance,
maintains its original plural markers in most
cases: singular nana, togbe, odikro, plural
nananom, togbuiwo, adikro – no English forms
*nanas or *togbes but there are the double-plurals
adikros (attested in the sentence “Kuntunkununkun
elevated a number of ‘adikros’ to
chief status with palanquins”, Chronicle
19–21:3:99) and akyames (Akan: ‘linguists’)
(as in “I didn’t know there were female
akyames in Ghana”, as said by an Akan University
professor, 18 Aug 2000, where the doubleplural
markers are Twi a- and English -s). ...[Sidebar:]When writers in Ghana use a word that they recognize
as non-Standard English, the item is commonly
isolated on the page by means of such devices
as an initial capital or italics, regardless of its frequency
of occurrence. Some examples from the
glossary:
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