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Ghanaian English
Ghanaian English is a variety of English spoken in Ghana. English is the official language of Ghana, and is used as a lingua franca throughout the country. English remains the designated language for all official and formal purposes even as there are 11 indigenous Government-sponsored languages used widely throughout the country. Demographics Of the more than 28 million people in Ghana, more than half of the population uses English, and most use English exclusively. Primary and secondary school classes at public schools, and schools that prepare for public certificates are taught in English only. Phonology Due to Ghana's colonial history, Ghanaian English most closely resembles British English, although it is decidedly varied and deviates from the standard in many ways based on location and context. In contrast to the twelve monophthongal vowels of Received Pronunciation, Ghanaian English has only seven, an attribute shared with other forms of African English. Ghanaian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east.Jackson, John G. (2001) ''Introduction to African Civilizations'', Citadel Press, p. 201, . Ghana covers an area of , spanning diverse biomes that range from coastal savannas to tropical rainforests. With nearly 31 million inhabitants (according to 2021 census), Ghana is the List of African countries by population, second-most populous country in West Africa, after Nigeria. The capital and List of cities in Ghana, largest city is Accra; other major cities are Kumasi, Tamale, Ghana, Tamale, and Sekondi-Takoradi. The first permanent state in present-day Ghana was the Bono state of the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful were the Kingdom of Dagbon in the north and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lingua Franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages. Lingua francas have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance-based pidgin language used especially by traders in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries. A world language – a language spoken internationally and by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primary School
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary education of children who are four to eleven years of age. Primary schooling follows pre-school and precedes secondary schooling. The International Standard Classification of Education considers primary education as a single phase where programmes are typically designed to provide fundamental skills in reading, writing, and mathematics and to establish a solid foundation for learning. This is ISCED Level 1: Primary education or first stage of basic education.Annex III in the ISCED 2011 English.pdf Navigate to International Standard Classification of Educati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secondary School
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., both levels 2 and 3 of the International Standard Classification of Education, ISCED scale, but these can also be provided in separate schools. In the United States, US, the secondary education system has separate Middle school#United States, middle schools and High school in the United States, high schools. In the United Kingdom, UK, most state schools and Independent school, privately-funded schools accommodate pupils between the ages of 11–16 or 11–18; some UK Independent school, private schools, i.e. Public school (United Kingdom), public schools, admit pupils between the ages of 13 and 18. Secondary schools follow on from primary school, primary schools and prepare for voc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Ulster English, Northern Irish English. Tom McArthur (linguist), Tom McArthur in the ''Oxford Guide to World English'' acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British people, British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective ''wee'' is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, North E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, where the vowel quality changes within the same syllable, and hiatus, where two vowels are next to each other in different syllables. A vowel sound whose quality does not change over the duration of the vowel is called a pure vowel. Sound changes The conversions of monophthongs to diphthongs (diphthongization), and of diphthongs to monophthongs (monophthongization), are major elements of language change and are likely the cause of further changes. In some languages, due to monophthongization, graphemes that originally represented diphthongs now represent monophthongs. See also * Diphthong, also known as a vowel cluster * Vowel hiatus * Index of phonetics articles * Table of vowels * Semivowel * Triphthong * Vowel * Vowel breaking Refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geographically neutral, how many speakers there are, whether sub-varieties exist, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard and how the accent has changed over time. The name itself is controversial. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation; other areas relevant to the study of language standards such as vocabulary, grammar and Style (sociolinguistics), style are not considered. History RP has most in common with the dialects of South East Midlands, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge. By the end of the 15th century, "Standard English" was established in the City of London, though it did not begin to resemble RP until the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African English
Dialects are linguistic varieties that may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. For the classification of varieties of English only in terms of pronunciation, see regional accents of English. Overview Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible." English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation) as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions; many different dialects can be identified based on these factors. Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or regional dialect, various more localised sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions without any prior exposure. The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foot–goose And Full–fool Mergers
Most dialects of modern English have two close back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like ''foot'', and the close back rounded vowel (realized as central in many dialects) found in words like ''goose''. The vowel , which historically was back, is often central as well. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds. Historical development The Old English vowels included a pair of short and long close back vowels, and , both written (the longer vowel is often distinguished as in modern editions of Old English texts). There was also a pair of back vowels of mid-height, and , both of which were written (the longer vowel is often in modern editions). The same four vowels existed in the Middle English system. The short vowels were still written and , but long came to be spelt as , and as . Generally, the Middle English vowels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiceless Alveolo-palatal Sibilant
The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ("c", plus the curl also found in its voiced counterpart ). It is the sibilant equivalent of the voiceless palatal fricative, and as such it can be transcribed in IPA with . In British Received Pronunciation, after syllable-initial (as in ''Tuesday'') is realized as a devoiced palatal fricative. The amount of devoicing is variable, but the fully voiceless variant tends to be alveolo-palatal in the sequence: . It is a fricative, rather than a fricative element of an affricate because the preceding plosive remains alveolar, rather than becoming alveolo-palatal, as in Dutch., . The first source specifies the place of articulation of after as more front than the main allophone of . The corresponding affricate can be written with or in narrow IPA, though is normally used in both cases. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiceless Alveolo-palatal Affricate
The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are , , and , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_s\ and c_s\, though transcribing the stop component with (c in X-SAMPA) is rare. The tie bar may be omitted, yielding or in the IPA and ts\ or cs\ in X-SAMPA. Neither nor are a completely narrow transcription of the stop component, which can be narrowly transcribed as ( retracted and palatalized ) or ( advanced ). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_-' or t_-_j and c_+, respectively. There is also a dedicated symbol , which is not a part of the IPA. Therefore, narrow transcriptions of the voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate include , and . This affricate used to have a dedicated symbol , which was one of the six dedicated symbols for affricates in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It occurs in languages such as Mandar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
