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Ghana The Ga-Adangbe
The Ga-Adangbe people inhabit the Accra Plains. The Adangbe are
found to the east, the Ga groups, to the west of the Accra
coastlands. Although both languages are derived from a common
proto-Ga-Adangbe ancestral language, modern Ga and Adangbe are
mutually unintelligible. The modern Adangbe include the people of
Shai, La, Ningo, Kpone, Osudoku, Krobo, Gbugble, and Ada, who speak
different dialects. The Ga also include the Ga-Mashie groups
occupying neighborhoods in the central part of Accra, and other Gaspeakers who migrated from Akwamu, Anecho in Togo, Akwapim, and
surrounding areas.
Debates persist about the origins of the Ga-Adangbe people. One
school of thought suggests that the proto-Ga-Adangbe people came
from somewhere east of the Accra plains, while another suggests a
distant locale beyond the West African coast. In spite of such
historical and linguistic theories, it is agreed that the people
were settled in the plains by the thirteenth century. Both the Ga
and the Adangbe were influenced by their neighbors. For example,
both borrowed some of their vocabulary, especially words relating
to economic activities and statecraft, from the Guan. The Ewe are
also believed to have influenced the Adangbe.
Despite the archeological evidence that proto-Ga-Adangbe-
speakers relied on millet and yam cultivation, the modern Ga reside
in what used to be fishing communities. Today, such former Ga
communities as Labadi and Old Accra are neighborhoods of the
national capital of Accra. This explains why, in 1960, when the
national enumeration figures showed the ethnic composition of the
country's population, more than 75 percent of the Ga were described
as living in urban centers. The presence of major industrial,
commercial, and governmental institutions in the city, as well as
increasing migration of other people into the area, had not
prevented the Ga people from maintaining aspects of their
traditional culture.
Data as of November 1994
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