Asante dialect

Asante
Ashanti
Native to Ashanti
Ethnicity Ashanti people
Native speakers
9 million[1][2] (2015)[1][2][3]
Official status
Official language in
Ashanti City-State and the Ashanti City-State capital Kumasi
Regulated by Akan Orthography Committee
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog asan1239[4]

Ashanti, Asante, or Asante Twi, is spoken by over 9 million ethnic Ashanti people as a first language and second language.[1][2] Ashanti (or Ashanti Twi) is one of three literary dialects of the Akan language of Ashantiland, and the prestige dialect of that language. It is spoken in and around Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti and Ashanti Kingdom Ashantiland or Ashanti Empire.

The two dialects of Akuapem and Asante are known as Twi and are to be mutually intelligible. There are about 9 million Twi speakers, mainly in Ashanti.[1][2] Akuapem Twi was the first dialect to be used for bible translation, and became the prestige dialect as a result.[5]

In Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 Asante is analysed as a dialect of Twi. Twi in its turn is a language belonging to the macrolanguage of Akan. In Glottolog Akuapem and Asante are found as dialects under the language Akan.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Ashanti » Ashanti Twi (Less Commonly Taught Languages)". University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. University of Michigan.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Ashanti » Ashanti Twi". ofm-tv.com.
  3. Akan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  4. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Asante". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  5. "Twi". Omniglot. Retrieved 10 March 2015.


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