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26-601: The Manhyia Palace ( Akan : Oman hyia , English: Gathering of the people) is the seat of the Asantehene , as well as his official residence. It is located in Menshyia, Kumasi , the capital of the Ashanti Region of Ghana . The first palace is now a museum. Otumfuor Opoku Ware II built the new palace, which is close to the old one and is where the current Asantehene, Otumfuor Osei Tutu II , resides. The palace

52-576: A common orthography for all of Akan, which is used as the medium of instruction in primary school . The Akan language is recognized for literacy, from at least the lower primary level (primary 1–3). Akan languages are studied at several major universities in the United States, including Ohio University , Ohio State University , University of Wisconsin-Madison , Harvard University , Boston University , Indiana University , University of Michigan , and The University of Florida . Akan has been

78-411: A form of vowel harmony with the root of the tongue. Akan has three phonemic tones, high (/H/), mid (/M/), and low (/L/). Initial syllable may only be high or low . The phonetic pitch of the three tones depends on their environment, often being lowered after other tones, producing a steady decline known as tone terracing . /H/ tones have the same pitch as a preceding /H/ or /M/ tone within

104-547: A regular African language of study in the annual Summer Cooperative African Languages Institute (SCALI) program. The Akan language is studied in these universities as a bachelor or masters program. The Akan peoples use a common Akan (Ghana) naming system of giving the first name to a child, based on the day of the week that the child was born. Almost all the tribes and clans in Ghana have a similar custom. Akan Orthography Committee The Akan Orthography Committee ( AOC )

130-468: A rich literature in proverbs, folktales, and traditional drama, as well as a new literature in dramas, short stories, and novels. This literature began to be documented in written form in the late 1800s. Later, Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia collected a number of proverbs and folktales, including Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (1969), Folk Songs of Ghana (1963), and Akan Poetry (1958). Some of

156-478: Is raised in pitch but the final /H/ is still lowered. Thus /HMH/ and /HLH/ are pronounced with distinct but very similar pitches. After the first "prominent" syllable of a clause, usually the first high tone, there is a downstep . This syllable is usually stressed. Akan forms some plural nouns by adding the prefixes 'm' or 'n' to the original word and removing the first sound of the noun. Example include nouns like abofra (child), which forms its plural by removing

182-567: The Golden stool to the then governor of the Gold Coast . Prempeh I only accepted the offer after he had paid for the cost of the building in full. Two kings lived in the palace, namely Otumfuo Prempeh I and Otumfuo Sir Osei Agyeman Prempeh II , KBE , the 13th and 14th kings of the Asante nation. The old palace was converted into a museum in 1995 after the new palace was built. Opoku Ware II

208-845: The Jamaican Maroons , also known as the Coromantee . The cultures of the descendants of escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname and the Maroons in Jamaica still retain Akan influences, including the Akan naming practice of naming children after the day of the week on which they are born, e.g. Akwasi/Kwasi for a boy or Akosua for a girl born on a Sunday. In Jamaica and Suriname, the Anansi spider stories are still well-known. In history,

234-679: The 'ab' from the word and adding 'mm' to form its plural: mmofra (children). Same goes for aboa (animal) to mmoa (animals), abusua (family) to mmusua (families), abirekyie (goat) to mmirekyie (goats) etc. in the Asante dialect. The nouns which use the 'n' prefix include; adaka (box) to nnaka (boxes), adanko (rabbit) to nnanko (rabbits), aduro (medicine) to nnuro (medicines), atare (dress) to ntare (dresses), odwan (sheep) to nnwan (sheep plural), aduane (food) to nnuane (food plural), kraman (dog) to nkraman (dogs), kanea (light) to nkanea (lights), safoa (key) to nsafoa (keys). Akan can create plural nouns by adding

260-809: The Akans in Ghana makes it an area of research for various disciplines such as folklore, literary studies, linguistics , anthropology and history. Akan is a dialect continuum that is closely related to the Bia languages , the other Central Tano languages spoken by the Akan people . The relationships of the major Akan dialects are as follows: Brong (Bono) Wasa Asante Akuapem Fante Ethnologue reports that Brong and Wasa have limited mutual intelligibility with each other, and so may be considered separate languages, though Dolphyne reports that they are mutually intelligible with at least neighboring dialects of

286-599: The Akans who live in Ghana migrated in successive waves between the 11th and 18th centuries. Others inhabit the eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire and parts of Togo . They migrated from the north to occupy the forest and coastal areas in the south in the 13th century. The Akans have a strong oral history tradition of their past and they're also known in the art history world for symbolic artifacts of wood, metal and terracotta. Their cultural ideas are expressed in stories and proverbs and also in designs such as symbols used in carvings and on clothes. The cultural and historic nature of

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312-536: The Asante Kingdom. The facility has an blend of traditional Asante styles with modern architecture . It is equipped with an outdoor space, an entrance lobby, a commercial kitchen , a conference room , a wine bar, and a main hall which spans 1,200 m (13,000 sq ft). The Otumfuo Osei Tutu II Jubilee Hall is a multi-purpose convention centre situated in the Manhyia Palace, named after

338-843: The Centre for National Culture, Kumasi. Upon the return from exile of the Asantehene Nana Prempeh I from the Seychelles Islands , the building was offered to him for use as his residence. This was because prior to the Asantehene's exile, his old palace had been burnt down in the Yaa Asentewa War . The war was fought between the British and the Asantes because of the refusal of the Asantehene to offer

364-516: The context of the vowel /i/ . These sounds do occur before other vowels, such as /a/ , though in most cases not commonly. In Asante, /ɡu/ followed by a vowel is pronounced /ɡʷ/ , but in Akuapem it remains /ɡu/ . The sequence /nh/ is pronounced [ŋŋ̊] . A word final /k/ can be heard as a glottal stop [ʔ] . There is also a nasalization of /h/ and of /j w/ as [h̃] and [j̃ w̃] , when occurring before nasal vowels. The transcriptions in

390-567: The current Asantehene, Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II . Commissioned on 15 April 2024, its purpose is to hold meetings, get-togethers, cultural performances, and other traditional functions. 6°42′13″N 1°36′57″W  /  6.70361°N 1.61583°W  / 6.70361; -1.61583 Akan language Three dialects were developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies : Asante and Akuapem , collectively known as Twi , and Fante . Despite being mutually intelligible , they were inaccessible in written form to speakers of

416-449: The important authors in the language are A. A. Opoku (dramatist), E. J. Osew (dramatist), K. E. Owusu (novelist), and R. A. Tabi (dramatist and novelist). The Bureau of Ghana Languages has been unable to continue printing novels in the language, and the following are out of print: Obreguo, Okrabiri, Afrakoma, Obeede, Fia Tsatsala, and Ku Di Fo Nanawu . In 1978 the AOC established

442-460: The museum, as well as life-sized wax effigies of some of the kings and queens of Asanteman. The architecture of the palace is akin to Asante's architecture of the early 1900s. The palace is a two-story building with both floors having open verandas, giving a view of the palace's environs. In 1995, an outbuilding was added to the original palace to serve as a gift shop. The palace has a large courtyard and it showcases statues of past kings and queens of

468-788: The other standards until the Akan Orthography Committee (AOC)'s development of a common Akan orthography in 1978, based mainly on Akuapem dialect . As the first Akan variety to be used for Bible translation, Akuapem had become the prestige dialect. With the Atlantic slave trade , Akan languages were introduced to the Caribbean and South America , notably in Suriname , spoken by the Ndyuka , and in Jamaica , spoken by

494-412: The rest of Akan. The Akan dialects contain extensive palatalization , vowel harmony , and tone terracing . Before front vowels , all Asante consonants are palatalized (or labio-palatalized ), and the stops are to some extent affricated . The allophones of /n/ are quite complex. In the table below, palatalized allophones which involve more than minor phonetic palatalization are specified, in

520-405: The same tonic phrase, whereas /M/ tones have a lower pitch. That is, the sequences /HH/ and /MH/ have a level pitch, whereas the sequences /HM/ and /MM/ have a falling pitch. /H/ is lowered ( downstepped ) after a /L/. /L/ is the default tone, which emerges in situations such as reduplicated prefixes. It is always at bottom of the speaker's pitch range, except in the sequence /HLH/, in which case it

546-513: The seven-vowel orthography, and five nasal vowels, which are not represented at all. All fourteen were distinguished in the Gold Coast alphabet of the colonial era. A tongue-root distinction in orthographic a is only found in some subdialects of Fante, but not in the literary form; in Asante and Akuapem there are harmonic allophones of /a/ , but neither is ATR. The two vowels written e ( /e/ and /i̙/ ) and o ( /o/ and /u̙/ ) are often not distinguished in pronunciation. Akan vowels engage in

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572-525: The suffix nom to the original word. Examples include; agya (father) to agyanom (fathers), nana (grandparent/grandchild) to nananom (grandparents/grandchildren), nua (sibling) to nuanom (siblings), yere (wife) to yerenom (wives). Some Akan nouns are the same in both singular and plural. Nouns such as nkyene (salt), ani (eye), sika (money), etc., are written the same in both singular and plural. The letters C, J, Q, V, X and Z are also used, but only in loanwords . The Akan languages have

598-583: The tables below are in the order / phonemic /, [ phonetic ]. Note that orthographic ⟨dw⟩ is ambiguous; in textbooks, ⟨dw⟩ = /ɡ/ may be distinguished from /dw/ with a diacritic: d̩w . Likewise, velar ⟨nw⟩ ( ŋw ) may be transcribed n̩w . Orthographic ⟨nu⟩ is palatalized [ɲᶣ] . The Akan dialects have fourteen to fifteen vowels: four to five "tense" vowels ( advanced tongue root ; +ATR or -RTR), five "lax" vowels ( retracted tongue root , +RTR or -ATR), which are not entirely contrastively represented by

624-652: Was built in 1925 by the British after they had demolished the Aban Palace built by Ashanti Empire . The British were said to have been impressed by the size of the original palace and the scope of its contents, which included "rows of books in many languages", but during the War of the Golden Stool , the British demolished the royal palace with explosives. The palace consequently erected is 1 km (0.62 mi) from

650-495: Was founded for the promotion of the Akan language and has since created a standard dialect for Akan. A standardized writing and orthographic writing system for Akan was completed by the Akan Orthography Committee (AOC) in 1968. Akan languages started to be written down mainly in religious publications by Danish, German and British missionaries during the 17th and 18th centuries. The unified Akan orthography

676-480: Was the first king to live in the new palace, which he occupied until his death in 1999. The palace was converted into a museum and officially opened on 12 August 1995 by the then king Opoku Ware II . Several artifacts are displayed in the museum. They include furniture used by the kings, the bronze head of Osei Agyeman Prempeh II , and a sketch map of the Asanteman. There is also the Asanteman's first television at

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