The Republic of Ghana is a country in
West Africa. It borders
Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west,
Burkina Faso to the north,
Togo to the east, and the
Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word "Ghana" means "Warrior King", and was the source of the name "Guinea" (via French Guinoye) that is used to refer to the West African coast (as in
Gulf of Guinea).
Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient kingdoms, including the Ga Adangbes on the eastern coast, inland
Empire of Ashanti and various
Fante states along the coast and inland. Trade with European states flourished after contact with the
Portuguese in the 15th century, and the
British established a
crown colony,
Gold Coast, in 1874.
Upon being the first African nation to achieve independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, the name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient
Empire of Ghana that once extended throughout much of western Africa. In the
Ashanti language it is spelled Gaana.
Medieval Ghana (4th - 13th Century):The Republic of Ghana is named after the medieval
Ghana Empire of West Africa.[
citation needed] The actual name of the Empire was Ouagadougou. Ghana was the title of the kings who ruled the kingdom.[
citation needed] It was controlled by Sundiata in 1240 AD, and absorbed into the larger
Mali Empire. (Mali Empire reached its peak of success under
Mansa Musa around 1307.) Around 1235, a
Muslim leader named
Sundiata united warring tribes. He then brought neighboring states under his rule to create the Mali empire.Its capital city was called Kumbi-Saleh.
Map of Ghana
Geographically, the old Ghana was approximately 500 miles (800 km) north of the present Ghana, and occupied the area between Rivers Senegal and Niger.
Some inhabitants of present Ghana have ancestors linked with the medieval Ghana. This can be traced down to the Mande and Voltaic people of Northern Ghana--Mamprussi, Dagomba and the Gonja.[
citation needed] Anecdotal evidence connected the Akans to this Empire. The evidence lies in names like Danso shared by the Akans of present Ghana and Mandikas of Senegal/Gambia who have strong links with the Empire. Ghana was also the site of the
Empire of Ashanti, which was perhaps the most advanced black state in sub-Sahara Africa.[
citation needed] It is said that at its peak, the King of
Ashanti could field 500,000 troops.
Up until March 1957, Ghana was known to much of the world as the
Gold Coast. The
Portuguese, who came to Ghana in the 15th Century, found so much
gold between the rivers Ankobra and the Volta that they named the place Mina - meaning Mine.[
citation needed] The Gold Coast was later adopted by English colonists. The French, impressed with the trinkets worn by the coastal people, named the area to the west "Cote d'Ivoire," or Ivory Coast.
Elmina CastleIn 1481, King John II of Portugal commissioned
Diogo d'Azambuja to build
Elmina Castle, which was completed the next year. Their aim was to trade in gold,
ivory and slaves, consolidating their burgeoning power in the region.
By 1598, the Dutch had joined them, and built forts at Komenda and Kormantsi. In 1637, they captured Elmina Castle from the Portuguese and Axim in 1642 (Fort St Anthony). Other European traders joined in by the mid 17th century, largely
English,
Danes and
Swedes. The coastline was dotted by more than 30 forts and castles built by Dutch, British and Danish merchants. The Gold Coast became the highest concentration of European military architecture outside of Europe.[
citation needed] By the latter part of the 19th century, the Dutch and the British were the only traders left,[
citation needed] and after the Dutch withdrew in 1874, Britain made the Gold Coast a
protectorate.
For most of central sub-
Saharan Africa,
agricultural expansion marked the period before 500. Farming began earliest on the southern tips of the Sahara, eventually giving rise to village settlements. Toward the end of the classical era, larger regional kingdoms had formed in West Africa, one of which was the
Kingdom of Ghana, north of what is today the nation of Ghana. After its fall at the beginning of the 13th century,
Akan migrants moved southward then founded several nation-states including the first great Akan empire of the
Bono, which is now known as the
Brong Ahafo region in Ghana. Later Akan groups such as the
Ashanti federation and
Fante states are thought to possibly have roots in the original Bono settlement at Bono manso. Much of the area was united under the
Empire of Ashanti by the 16th century. The
Ashanti government operated first as a loose network and eventually as a centralized
kingdom with an advanced, highly-specialized
bureaucracy centered in
Kumasi.
Aburi hills
The first contact between the Ghanaian peoples, the Fantes on the coastal area and Europeans occurred in 1482. The Portuguese first landed at
Elmina, a coastal city inhabited by the
Fanti nation-state in 1482. During the next few centuries parts of the area were controlled by British, Portuguese, and Scandinavian powers, with the British ultimately prevailing. These nation-states maintained varying alliances with the colonial powers and each other, which resulted in the 1806
Ashanti-Fante War, as well as an ongoing struggle by the
Empire of Ashanti against the British. Moves toward regional de-colonization began in 1946, and the area's first constitution was promulgated in 1951.
Formed from the merger of the British colony
Gold Coast, The
Empire of Ashanti and the
British Togoland trust territory by a
UN sponsored plebiscite, Ghana became the first democratic sub-Sahara country in colonial Africa to gain its independence in 1957.
Kwame Nkrumah,LIE founder and first president of the modern Ghanaian state, was not only an African anti-colonial leader but also one with a dream of a united Africa which would not drift into neo-colonialism. He was the first African head of state to espouse
Pan-Africanism, an idea he came into contact with during his studies at
Lincoln University in
Pennsylvania (United States), at the time when
Marcus Garvey was becoming famous for his "Back to Africa Movement." He merged the dreams of both Marcus Garvey and the celebrated African-American scholar
W.E.B. Du Bois into the formation of the modern day Ghana. Ghana's principles of freedom and justice, equity and free education for all, irrespective of ethnic background, religion or creed, borrow from
Kwame Nkrumah's implementation of Pan-Africanism.
Memorial to
Kwame Nkrumah in
Accra.
The leader of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, was overthrown by a military
coup in 1966. It has been argued that this was supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency; that assertion remains generally unproven. A series of subsequent coups ended with the ascension to power of
Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings in 1981. These changes resulted in the suspension of the constitution in 1981 and the banning of political parties. A new constitution, restoring multi-party politics, was promulgated in 1992, and Rawlings was elected as president in the free and fair elections of that year and again won the elections 1996 to serve his second term. The constitution prohibited him from running for a third term.
John Agyekum Kufuor, the current president, is now serving his second term, which ends in 2008 where another election will be held to elect a new president. 2007 marked Ghana's Golden Jubilee, celebrating fifty years of independence since 6 March 1957.
Government
Government: Ghana was created as a parliamentary democracy at independence in 1957, followed by alternating military and civilian governments. In January 1993, military government gave way to Fourth Republic after presidential and parliamentary elections in late 1992. The 1992 constitution divides powers among a president, parliament, cabinet, Council of State, and an independent judiciary. The Government is elected by universal suffrage.
President
John Kufuor (since 2001)
Administrative Divisions: There are ten administrative regions which are divided into 110 districts, each with its own District Assembly. Below districts are various types of councils, including fifty eight town or area councils, 108 zonal councils, and 626 area councils. 16,000 unit committees on lowest level.
Accra Conference Centre
Judicial System: The legal system is based on Ghanaian
common law, customary (traditional) law, and the 1992 constitution. Court hierarchy consists of Supreme Court of Ghana (highest court), Court of Appeal, and High Court of Justice. Beneath these bodies are district, traditional, and local courts. Extrajudicial institutions include public tribunals. Since independence, courts are relatively independent; this independence continues under Fourth Republic. Lower courts are being redefined and reorganized under the Fourth Republic.
Politics: Political parties became legal in mid-1992 after ten-year hiatus. Under the Fourth Republic, major parties are National Democratic Congress, led by
Jerry John Rawlings, which won presidential and parliamentary elections in 1992; New Patriotic Party, major opposition party; People's National Convention, led by former president Hilla Limann; and (new) People's Convention Party, successor to Kwame Nkrumah's original party of same name.
Foreign Relations: Since independence, Ghana has been fervently devoted to ideals of nonalignment and Pan-Africanism, both closely identified with first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Ghana favors international and regional political and economic cooperation, and is an active member of United Nations and Organization of African Unity. In 1994 President Rawlings was elected chairman of Economic Community of West African States.
EconomyWell endowed with natural resources, Ghana has twice the per capita output of the poorer countries in
West Africa. Even so, Ghana remains somewhat dependent on international financial and technical assistance as well as the activities of the extensive Ghanaian diaspora.
Gold,
timber,
cocoa,
diamond,
bauxite, and
manganese exports are major sources of foreign exchange. An oilfield which is reported to contain up to 3 billion barrels (480,000,000 m3) of light oil was discovered in 2007.Oil exploration is ongoing and, the amount of oil continues to increase .
The domestic economy continues to revolve around subsistence agriculture, which accounts for 50% of
GDP and employs 85% of the work force, mainly small landholders. Ghana made progress under a three-year structural adjustment program in cooperation with the
IMF.[
neutrality disputed] On the negative side, public sector wage increases and regional peacekeeping commitments have led to continued inflationary deficit financing, depreciation of the
Cedi, and rising public discontent with Ghana's
austerity measures. Even so, Ghana remains one of the more economically sound countries in all of Africa.
Makola Market,
AccraThe country has since July, 2007, embarked on a currency
re-denomination exercise, from
Cedi (¢) to the new currency, the Ghana Cedi (GH¢). The transfer rate is 1 Ghana Cedi for every 10,000 Cedis. The Bank of Ghana has embarked upon an aggressive media campaign to educate the public about what re-denomination entails. The new Ghana Cedi is now exchanging at a rate of $1 USD =Gh¢ 0.93[
citation needed]
Value Added Tax is a consumption tax administered in Ghana. The tax regime which started in 1998 had a single rate but since September 2007 entered into a multiple rate regime. In 1998, the rate of tax was 10% and amended in 2000 to 12.5%. However with the passage of Act 734 of 2007, a 3% VAT Flat Rate Scheme (VFRS) began to operate for the retail distribution sector. This allows retailers of taxable goods under Act 546 to charge a marginal 3% on their sales and account on same to the VAT Service. It is aimed at simplifying the tax system and increasing compliance.
Geography
Ghana's highest point is
Mount Afadjato, seen here from the village of Liati Wote
Ghana is a country located on the
Gulf of Guinea, only a few degrees north of the
Equator, therefore giving it a warm climate. The Greenwich Meridian also passes through Ghana, specifically through the industrial city of Ghana-Tema; so it is said that Ghana is geographically closer to the "centre" of the world than any other country. The coastline is mostly a low, sandy shore backed by plains and scrub and intersected by several rivers and streams. Formerly, a tropical rainforest belt, broken by heavily forested hills and many streams and rivers, extended northward from the coast, but most of the rainforest was felled in the twentieth century, leaving scattered remnants, principally in the southwest, some of which are under protection. North of this belt, the land is covered by low bush, park-like savannah, and grassy plains.
The climate is
tropical. The eastern coastal belt is warm and comparatively dry (see
Dahomey Gap); the southwest corner, hot and humid; and the north, hot and dry.
Lake Volta, the world's largest artificial lake, extends through large portions of eastern Ghana.
Demographics
KumasiThe major ethnic groups are
Akan 45.3%,
Mole-
Dagbon 15.2%,
Ewe 11.7%,
Ga-Dangme 7.3%, Guan 4%, Gurma 3.6%,
Gurunsi 2.6%,
Mande-Busanga 1%, other tribes 1.4%, other (
Hausa,
Zabarema,
Fulani) 7.8% (2000 census).
According to the 2000 government census, religious divisions are as follows:
Christian 69%,
Muslim 16%, African beliefs 15%.The Christianity practiced in Ghana has many aspects of traditional African religion integrated into it.
Population of major cities
City
Population
Accra2,096,653
Kumasi1,604,909
Tamale390,730
Sekondi-Takoradi260,651
Tema229,106
Teshie154,513
Cape Coast154,204
Obuasi147,613
Languages 
A street seller in Accra
More than 250 languages and dialects are spoken in Ghana. English is the country's official language and predominates government and business affairs. It is also the standard language used for educational instruction. Native Ghanaian languages are divided into two linguistic subfamilies of the
Niger-Congo language family.
Tamale Languages belonging to the
Kwa subfamily are found predominantly to the south of the
Volta River, while those belonging to the
Gur subfamily are found predominantly to the north. The Kwa group, which is spoken by about 75% of the country's population, includes the
Akan,
Ga-Dangme, and
Ewe languages. The Gur group includes the Gurma,
Grusi, and
Dagbani languages.
Nine languages have the status of government-sponsored languages:
Akan,
Dagaare/Wale,
Dagbani,
Dangme,
Ewe,
Ga,
Gonja, Kasem, and
Nzema. Though not an official language,
Hausa is the
lingua-franca spoken among Ghana's Muslims, who comprise about 14% of the population.
Education Presently, Ghana has 18,530 primary schools, 8,850 junior secondary schools, 900 senior secondary schools, 28 training colleges, 20 technical institutions, 4 diploma-awarding institutions, 6 public universities and over 10 private universities. Most Ghanaians have relatively easy access to primary and secondary education. These numbers can be contrasted with the single university and handful of secondary and primary schools that existed at the time of independence in 1957. Ghana's spending on education has varied between 28 and 40 percent of its annual budget in the past decade. All teaching is done in English, Ghana's official language.
A Dora textile group in
NsawamGhana has a 6-year primary education system beginning at the age of six, and, under the educational reforms implemented in 1987, they pass on to a 3-year junior secondary system all making up the basic education and then afterwards a three year senior secondary system. The new educational reforms programme which was introduced in 2007 has now replaced the previous system. Now the junior secondary school is now junior high school (JHS). At the end of the 3rd year of JHS, there is a Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). Those continuing must complete the 4-year senior high school (SHS) program and take an admission exam to enter university. School enrollment totals over 2 million: 1.3 million primary; 550,000 middle; 300,000 secondary; 84,280 technical; 18,000 teacher training, and 89,000 in university.
The shortage of places in post-secondary education is acute; one out of nine senior secondary graduates finds a place in a technical, teacher-training, or four-year university program
* Developed country or undeveloped country.
* Modern economy or traditional economy.
* Western society or Third World society.
Most Americans believe development and modernization have intrinsically greater worth than the existing structures in many non-Western countries. But the Western point of view and expertise does not necessarily work elsewhere, according to
Benjamin Asare, associate professor of sociology at
Indiana University Southeast.
The "Helping Hand" Can Kill You
Asare focuses his research in his native country of Ghana, a West African country bordering the Atlantic Ocean. While proponents of modernization theory argue that development in Ghana and other Third World countries must imitate the value systems and production techniques of the West, Asare's research points out significant problems with that idea.
This photograph of a "slave castle" is the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, where thousands of Africans were imprisoned in the dungeons. These and other castles are sites frequently visited by African Americans interested in their heritage. These fortresses were built by Europeans to defend their holdings and to warehouse captured Africans. Now they are museums run by the Ghanaian government as reminders of the slave trade that engulfed West and Central Africa.
The real problem, he notes, is that colonial powers exploited African resources. In Ghana, for instance, the British colonial administration organized the local economy to supply natural resources like coffee and cocoa for Britain. The best land was reserved for this effort, and Ghanaians were forced to supply cheap labor for the British. Ironically, this same pattern of exploitation continued after colonialism fell and the British went home. At that point, the Ghanaian government imposed policies that continued to exploit farmers. Specifically, the government established "marketing boards" that set the price for each agricultural product. The problem was that the government would pay the farmers relatively little for their products and then turn around and sell the products on the world market for a substantially higher price. The government pocketed the difference and channeled much of the additional money to urban centers.
Asare says the government's agricultural policies made the countryside an unattractive place to live, encouraging vast numbers of individuals to migrate to the cities. "If a farmer's children have been educated, they're very likely to move to the city, to have an opportunity to earn more," Asare says.
Although the rural areas need labor and the unemployment rates in the cities are quite high, many Ghanaians take the risk of moving for several reasons. First, the government has centralized facilities like hospitals, universities, and other "modern" services in urban centers. Second, the minimum wage in the cities is dramatically higher than the wages for farm workers in the now-socialized agricultural system.
"Many people live six or eight people to a single small room in the cities, hoping to find jobs. They believe that in the long run, they'll get jobs that will be well paying," Asare said. Meanwhile, in a country without welfare or other social services, young adults who have moved to the cities struggle to survive even as their families in the country struggle to accomplish their work with fewer workers and less than a third of their previous income.
How Did This Happen?
Asare explains that the roots of urbanization are longstanding. "When Europeans first went to Africa, they needed Africans who lived in the villages to migrate to the cities, to work on government projects and in mining," Asare says. "Because the Africans were unwilling, the colonists used whatever means of getting them to the cities that they could, including force. In this case, urbanization is directly the result of public government policy."
Government officials, mostly educated in the United State, France, Great Britain, Germany, and other Western societies, learned to copy systems they saw working in those Western settings. But the "transplanted" schemes don't thrive in Ghana. "There have been many studies that show where farmers are given a free hand in managing and expanding their operations, people do not migrate to the cities and the agrarian societies expand at a manageable pace," Asare says.
Reports and Recommendations
The University of Ghana's economic research department houses Asare when he returns to Ghana. Each time he makes a field trip, Asare gives a seminar at the University of Ghana on his findings. "The seminars are always patronized by government departments," Asare says.
Asare doesn't protect the government officials in his recommendations: "The only remedy is abolishing completely the marketing boards." Asare says the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have offered similar recommendations, although their approach is more gradual.
"We need to totally abolish these Cocoa Marketing Boards, transfer the assets to the farmers, allowing them to form cooperative associations," he says. "What the marketing boards have done could be done by anyone, easily managed by a cooperative, which could subcontract particular services to independent organizations."
The Next Phase of Study
Asare returned to Ghana during his fall semester sabbatical to complete two projects. His research appraising the Tono Irrigation Project will be an epidemiological study to decide what, if any, changes in disease patterns have been introduced because of the project. "When one dams a river in a semi-arid region, it's possible to introduce new diseases that the planners hadn't thought about.
Speaking the "Unspeakable
Samuel Gyasi Obeng is clearly at home in his small, tidy office several floors above the limestone arches of Memorial Hall. Yet the photographs and maps covering its walls evoke another home: his father's house in the village of Asuom, Ghana. "When I was growing up, there were people from all walks of life living with us--friends and relatives from other parts of Ghana, Peace Corps workers from the United States, and acquaintances from Burkina Faso and other countries. It was like a small United Nations," Obeng remembers. It was a propitious childhood for Obeng, assistant professor of linguistics and a faculty member in the African Studies Program at Indiana University Bloomington. He now teaches, among other courses, Sociolinguistics and Languages of the World, a course designed to broaden students' experience of languages and cultures. "I grew up surrounded by people from other places. Ghanaian society is a culture of inclusion. You grow up understanding that people are different."
Samuel Gyasi Obeng, assistant professor of
linguistics, Indiana University Bloomington
Nothing illustrates the diversity of Ghanaian society better than its profusion of languages, forty-four in all, many with multiple dialects, spoken by more than seventy five distinct ethnic groups. Akan, English, and Hausa (also spoken in Nigeria) constitute the current lingua francas. Ghana's linguistic heterogeneity is part of the fugue of Africa, where, on a given day, some 1,700 languages are spoken, representing about one third of the world's existing languages. "Languages reflect differences in people and cultures," Obeng observes. "They don't all use the same communication strategies."
Complexity and contradictions abound in Ghanaian culture. Members of the majority ethnic group, the Akan, trace their ancestral lineage through the maternal lines of families, and some are polygamous. Nearly one quarter of Ghanaians practice traditional religions, more than half are Christian, and many are Muslim. It is not unusual, Obeng explains, for people to practice a combination of religions. This daily theater of diversity is played out on a small stage: Ghana, at 92,100 square miles, is slightly smaller than Oregon.
Obeng's linguistic interests are broad. He has studied and written in detail about African languages, including Akan, Gwa Nmle, Bisa, Siwu, Ncham, Oku, and Swahili. But Obeng's primary research interest is sociolinguistics, which explores the relationship of language to society. He specializes in interactional sociolinguistics, a combination of conversation analysis and the ethnography of speaking. Most of his research centers around a subfield devoted to speech act theory. "Defined very simply," he explains, "speech act theory explores speakers' intentions and their impact on hearer--or how we accomplish things with words." His work intersects a major topic in the field of sociolinguistics today--politeness. Sociolinguists are asking: How do different societies perceive politeness? "What is considered polite in one culture might not be considered so in another," Obeng explains. "In some cultures it is considered rude for a person to ask a favor in a direct manner. But often in collective cultures, asking someone to do something for you in a direct manner is part of daily life and is considered quite sensible."
Ghana has been described as a polite society, where, as Obeng describes it, "people detest verbal confrontation" because it threatens social harmony. In such a society, how does one deal with an obnoxious neighbor, a meddling relative, or an incompetent village elder, if it is socially unacceptable to speak candidly? What prevents Ghanaians from quietly seething until they explode in anger? Obeng is an expert in the strategies Ghanaians use to "speak the unspeakable." Much of his research centers around one such strategy called verbal indirectness, a communication strategy people use to avoid trouble when expressing difficult or unpleasant information. "People use verbal indirectness to save face," Obeng explains. "In every society, our faces are vulnerable. The spoken word can make or break you on the spur of the moment. People are extremely careful when they are talking. You can defile your face by using the wrong word."
The concept of "saving face" includes a person's physical well being as well as public self image. Anyone who has ever tried to avoid offending a friend who has asked "Do you like my new haircut/sweater/tattoo?" with the answer "It's interesting. . ." has employed a favorite American form of verbal indirectness known as evasion. Across cultures, verbal indirectness occurs in casual conversation as well as in the formal discourse of politics and law. Akan language speakers typically use verbal indirectness to avoid conflict in situations ranging from advising, requesting money or favors, announcing misfortune, complimenting, criticizing, or denouncing someone's behavior, and in political and judicial discourse.
All speakers have a wealth of indirectness strategies to work with, including circumlocution (skirting the issue); indirectly authored speech forms, such as proverbs, metaphors, riddles, tales, and hyperbole; evasion; innuendo; pseudo-soliloquy (ostensibly talking to oneself); nonverbal strategies (sometimes including special props and costumes); the use of intermediaries; and pronoun mismatches. But the circumstances of application and frequency of use of specific indirectness strategies can vary from culture to culture.
Verbal indirectness in the form of pronoun substitutions or "mismatches" is common in Ghanaian contexts. Obeng describes how Akan speakers frequently use pronouns to address referents that differ from the person conventionally associated with a given pronoun. The first-person pronoun may be substituted for second- or third-person pronouns, and second- or third-person pronouns are sometimes used to mean first person. The use of pronoun mismatches depends upon variables such as the social positions of the speakers--whether they are social equals or subordinate and superordinateѡnd on the speakers' motives. For example, if two Akan wives (wife A and wife B), married to the same husband, are experiencing tension in their relationship, wife A might say (in the presence of wife B) "I am a disgrace." What wife A actually means is: "You are a disgrace." This pronoun substitution allows wife A to denounce wife B while ostensibly referring only to herself. In such cases pronoun mismatches save face and prevent open confrontations, which are prohibited. Because speakers of Akan generally share a cultural background, meaning or intent is not ambiguous. "The participants know exactly who is being referred to, yet the speaker can always claim, 'I was not talking to you,'" Obeng says.
"Pronoun mismatches often occur across languages and cultures, whenever people are trying to communicate something that is an 'unspeakable,' something that is, in some way, dangerous," Obeng observes. "You find this in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well. Christ, for example, referred to himself in the third person most of the time as the 'Son of Man.' Here in the U.S., Bob Dole gave us a well-known example during the 1996 presidential campaign, when he repeatedly referred to himself in the third person."
Obeng's research supports an opinion already well established in the realm of folk wisdom: verbal indirectness is a favorite communication strategy of politicians. "Politicians are at an even greater risk than ordinary citizens when they speak. It's not just their faces that they want to protect, but also their careers," he says. "Indirectness strategies can help them achieve a kind of political immunity in potentially threatening situations." Obeng has made interesting cross-cultural observations of the ways politicians adapt indirectness strategies to various political climates and forms of government. Comparing the political discourse of African and Western politicians, Obeng has discovered that indirectness is more pervasive in developing democracies such as those in Africa than in the more developed democracies of the West. He postulates that politicians in developing democracies frequently operate in climates of limited free speech and employ indirectness more often to avoid conflict.
"In Nigeria, for example, a politician can't be very direct in criticizing the government when the consequences may be prison, whereas, here in the U.S., nearly every time I turn on my radio or TV,
I hear the opposition lashing out at President Clinton," Obeng says. "So, the nature and frequency of indirectness depend upon the politics and conventions of the society itself."
Obeng's comparisons of Western and African political discourse indicate that Western politicians employ evasion more than any other form of indirectness, while African politicians employ more metaphors and proverbs. "Ghana is a stratified society," Obeng explains. "It is considered disrespectful to criticize chiefs and elders--all those of higher statusѩncluding government officials directly." He argues that metaphors and proverbs are particularly useful in Ghana and in some other African countries because of the "high disclaimer of performance" they attract. The speaker can say the "unspeakable" while maintaining the ability to emphatically deny that he or she has spoken directly to or about a specific person or political entity.
The old woman appears to be talking to her dog, but in this example of verbal indirectness the two people behind the fence are the target of her message. Talking through the dog gives her the communicative license to speak what is otherwise an unspeakable act.
In a paper published in 1997 in the journal Discourse & Society, Obeng describes an interesting case of political indirectness he encountered on November 3, 1992, the day of Ghana's Fourth Republican presidential elections. Obeng recorded two women talking while standing in a line of people waiting to vote. The women were aware of a law that banned campaigning near the polling booth, yet they campaigned informally for their favorite party by employing carefully chosen indirectness strategies. In the following excerpt, one of the women states: "The meat of an elephant is tasty! It takes a long time to be masticated so one can eat a lot of food with just a little lump of it. Chicken is tasty but too soft so one finishes eating it rather quickly."
In this case, the "elephant" she refers to is a metaphorical representation of the party she supports, which she praises indirectly in her statement "the meat of an elephant is tasty." She continues her metaphorical endorsement, claiming that elephant meat "takes a long time to be masticated," which suggests that the party is a resilient and reliable. In her "Chicken is tasty. . ." sentence, she goes on to denounce a rival party metaphorically described as "chicken," that is "tasty but too soft." Here the speaker combines metaphor and innuendo to suggest that, while the rival party might be a good political entity, it is weak and may not endure. Nearly all of the voters who heard their words understood their meaning.
Obeng explains that even in a polite society there are times when verbal directness is necessary and public officials should be obliged to listen to direct criticism. Obeng describes an Akan custom in which one day a year is set aside for speaking candidly to the chief of the village. "One can criticize, give advice, even insult him on this particular day of the year," he says. "This custom has now been extended to the modern political system, so that people can speak directly to political leaders as well. This system works very effectively in Ghana. There are very few repercussions, and people are very direct and astute with their criticisms."
Obeng is in the process of compiling his research on verbal indirectness, much of which has been published in leading journals in pragmatics and sociolinguistics, into a book length manuscript. He plans to extend his work on indirectness in political and formal judicial discourse, and is currently delving into a new research interest, onomastics, the study of names.
"Names provide insight into the cosmic interaction between language and culture. Each influences the other," Obeng observes. "You find this process beautifully illustrated in names." African names tend to be more descriptive of the lives and emotional states of the name-givers and name-bearers than Western names, which serve primarily as labels that link a child to his father. African names can reflect the parents' hopes, aspirations, and moods, as well as the geographical environment, day of the week, season, or time of day when a child is born.
African place names are also expressive of their name-giver's culture and history. Obeng cites the case of a town in Ghana named Poverty Is Harassment. "Now, why would anyone name a town that? In this case, the name-giver was very poor and couldn't pay his debts," Obeng explains. "So he left his village and founded a small town and called it Poverty Is Harassmentѡ great example of how culture influences language. There are many towns with similar names in Ghana. This is an aspect of linguistics that hasn't been explored much."
Obeng shares one final example of a remarkable Akan communication strategy that involves both naming and verbal indirectness: the naming of dogs for the purpose of relaying a message. Like Americans, Ghanaians keep dogs as pets, for security, for hunting, and for the economic benefits derived from breeding and selling puppies. But they also keep and name dogs to create what Obeng calls "a communicative situation in which the 'unspeakable' may be spoken." In such cases, Ghanaians give dogs names that address a problem or issue that cannot be addressed directly by their owners without fear of losing face in the community. "There are probably many dogs named 'Mind Your Own Business' in Ghana," Obeng says, laughing. "People frequently name their dogs to call attention to a social grievance, such as ingratitude or gossip."
In a recent paper, Obeng cites various examples of dogs with Akan names that address troubling personal issues. Many dogs cited had one- or two-word Akan names that translate into English phrases such as: "Whatever you do, people will gossip about you"; "Enough of your harassment!"; "Money matters/Life is hard!"; and the dramatically indignant, "The community must now be satisfied since the 'evil' it wished for me has eventually befallen me." Sometimes the dog itself becomes a significant tool for dealing with face-threatening situations, as with the dog named "Whatever you do, people will gossip about you." Having given his dog this name, the owner was able to show his neighbors that he was aware of and insulted by their gossip. By Akan custom, it is also acceptable to call attention to the dog's name in the presence of the person who is indirectly addressed through the dog. "If an Akan names his dog 'My neighbor is ungrateful,' and he happens to pass by that neighbor's house, he could call the dog's name and shower it with insults," Obeng explains. "Of course, the neighbor knows perfectly well that he is the target of these insults, but he cannot respond, because after all, it is the dog being spoken to, not him."
Obeng's research holds important implications for those working across cultural and ethnic boundaries in diplomacy and international relations. It suggests that, while language and culture are often inextricable, they are not impenetrable barriers to peaceful coexistence.
For example, in terms of ethnic diversity, Ghana bears some resemblance to other African and non-African countries where unresolved ethnic, religious, and political tensions have led to tragedy. Yet Ghanaians have continued to live in relative peace despite forty years of political uncertainty, military dictatorships, and the chronic suppression of free speech. Obeng's research casts light on some reasons why Ghanaians have managed to maintain their culture of tolerance. "Even in places where there are many ethnic groups and languages concentrated in a small area, Ghanaians are generally not hostile to one another. There are even cases of one language-speaking culture expanding into the territory of another language-speaking culture. Yet these groups have found ways of coexisting peacefully together because of certain conventions of culture and language that call for tolerance," Obeng explains. "For example, visitors--all outsiders--are supposed to be welcome. Hospitality is emphasized as a part of the national character. Language plays a part in that. Growing up with so many languages helps to acculturate Ghanaians to the fact that people aren't all the same."
"This is what makes sociolinguistics such an important area of linguistic study," Obeng explains. "Different people, different cultures, different social domains, different communication strategies--once you begin to study other languages, once you begin to understand how different societies use language, then you can begin to understand human communications. The implications are large."
Located in the north-eastern border of Ghana, Paga is a sacred crocodile sanctuary.
Kakum National Park
nal Park
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