Sixty four years of independence, the status of our Ghanaian Languages

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue V, May 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Sixty four years of independence, the status of our Ghanaian Languages

Sampson L.K. Yekple¹, Iddrisu Alhassan Sibdow^2
1Department of Languages, Ewe Unit, St. Teresa’s College of Education, Hohoe, Ghana
²Department of Languages, Dagbani Unit, Tamale College of Education, Tamale, Ghana

Abstract: The performance of Ghanaian Languages (GHLs) during the post-colonial Ghana has been in the hands of political parties and their ideological orientation. This paper looks at the trend of performance of the GHLs during the colonial era and arguably challenges the efforts of the successive military and democratic governments over the sixty four years of independence. The declaration of independence and freedom from the colonial masters was expected to grant performance rights to the languages. The paper found that governments paid leap services to the promotion of the GHLs as compared with the Guggisberg’s colonial era. Participation in the enactment and implementation of language policies has been limited to only government appointed elites. The general society equate success in education, employment, respect and prestige to the ability to speak English hence not giving due credit to the GHLs. The paper concludes that Ghana as a sovereign state has not done much after attaining independence though some improvement has been chalked. The paper hence suggest among others, the passing of a bill in parliament which becomes a legislative instrument for the language policy to put finality to the struggle. This instrument will further enjoin the legislature, the judiciary, the executive and the citizenry to perform various roles to ensure better performance of the GHLs in education and media.

Key words: Ghanaian Languages, status, education, performance.

I. INTRODUCTION

The paper aims to showcase the performance of the indigenous Ghanaian Languages in education and media focusing purposefully on the last sixty-four years of independence of Ghana. We confirm that much work has been done regarding language policy situation in Ghana. However, these studies have concentrated largely on language use in the classroom, language attitude, language policy implementation, debates on L1/L2 use as medium of instruction, the perception of Ghanaian on the use of L1 as medium of instruction (Owu-Ewie, 2017) and how the L2 only MoI violates the human and linguistic rights of Ghanaian children. The story has not been smooth and pleasant though. This paper is arguing that the effort made by successful governments in the development of our local languages alongside the independence journey has not been enough. Data for the paper was elicited from available literature on the subject matter.

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