Current sociolinguistic situation and varieties of GhP

The multilingual setting in Ghana is outlined in the article on English in Ghana. Huber (1995, 1999a) describes in detail the current sociolinguistic situation with special emphasis on GhP. The following is a summary of the most important facts.

GhP, locally known as ‘Pidgin (English)’, ‘Broken (English)’, and formerly as ‘Kru English’, or ‘kroo brofo’ (the Akan term), is a predominantly urban phenomenon. It is spoken in the southern towns, especially in the capital Accra. As will become apparent, GhP is confined to a smaller (though growing) section of society than Pidgin in other anglophone West African coun tries. Also, its functional domain is more restricted and the language is more stigmatized.

There are two varieties of GhP that form a continuum. Basilectal varieties are associated with the less educated sections of society and more mesolectal/acrolectal forms are usually spoken by speakers who have at least progressed to the upper forms of secondary school. I call these the ‘uneducated’ and the ‘educated/student’ varieties of GhP.

The difference between the two GhP varieties lies not so much in their linguistic structure (there are some differences but the two are mutually intelligible) as in the functions they serve: uneducated GhP is used as a lingua franca in highly multilingual contexts, whereas the more educated, or acrolectal, varieties are better characterized as in-group languages whose main function is to express group solidarity. There is a high rate of illiteracy in the linguistically heterogeneous immigrant quarters in southern Ghanaian cities where the uneducated variety has some currency. It is for this reason that Ghanaians usually equate Pidgin with a low level of education. On the other hand, GhP is also used by speakers with a high educational attainment, as among students at the Ghanaian universities. In these contexts, GhP does not fulfil basic communication needs – English is available to all parties in these settings and could be resorted to if no common indigenous language were at hand. Rather, Pidgin is used as a group-binder, to signal group identity and solidarity. Of course, interference from StGhE is much stronger with this last group than it is with uneducated speakers. However, the main differences between the two GhP varieties are lexical, not structural: by its very nature the variety used by the students is characterized by a high number of short-lived slang words, which may only be current on one campus or among one sub-group of students.