¹ Some of these variants, particularly in the labial consonants, did not occur in Mr Nkrumah's speech.

² This may be a borrowed word, or an archaic form now largely supplanted by the English form. Mr. Nkruma uses the normal variant also in /adiki/ ‘morning’ and /adisa/ ‘evening’. Some dialects of Fanti have [ts, dz] also before /e/ regularly, paralleling other consonants. In Mr. Mbura's speech, this phenomenon occurs freely in a few words, and regularly in a few others, which were possibly learned from speakers of dialects in which that alternation is regular; such forms are for the present assumed to be with [t] and [d] in Anumabo, until more complete evidence is available.

³ This analysis of [e] as /e/ and /a/ in complementary environments is required by the very existence of a contrast such as /ha-mú', he-mú'/. It is strengthened by a consideration of morphophonemics which should be stated here. In a large number of the positions in which [e] is assigned to the phoneme /a/, it represents all or part of the same morpheme as [a] does when /'/ is not influencing the vowel. Thus a widespread morphophonemic change is covered with no injustice to the facts by a phonemic statement. E.g., /maásì/ is for [maásì] 'I have said'; /maásì'/ is for [meésì] 'I have built'.

By the same morphophonemic principle, both /te/ and /ta/ are actualized as [te] when they come under the influence of /'/, and the same is true when the consonant is /d, s/, since these consonants alone have no special variants before /e/. Here a phonemic writing of both forms as /ta/ is necessary, although it obscures the distinction between morphemes; after all, that distinction is obscured in speech as well. Such a procedure is far preferable to analyzing [e] as /e/ in all cases and thus obscuring real phonemic distinctions such as are given above.

A similar morphophonemic principle changes /a/ to /o/ between labials, especially /w/, and /-mu'/; e.g. /kwó-mù'/ ‘bush country’ from /kw/ ‘farm’, /fó-mù'/ or /fá-mù'/ ‘the ground, down’ from /fá/ ‘earth, swish’; compare /wo-mú'/ ‘be inside’ from /wo/ ‘be at’. Here the phonemic analysis parallels the phonetic facts; /o/ is [o] in each case. But the analysis of [e] as /a/ is not a violation of any phonetic data; [e] as a variant of /a/ and [e] as a variant of /e/ occur in complementary distribution, and other phonetic data, the variants of preceding consonants, demand the analysis.

⁴ It is significant that, according to Mr.Mbura, /osi' áǹ déè/ does not have the zero variant but the normal variant of /i/ in the Cape Coast dialect. A small Fanti dictionary by J. Delaney Russell (1910) lists the form as osandẹ, but lists the word for ‘flour’ as isam, indicating the presence of the normal alternant of /i/ in that form also. The evidence for /si'an/ is rather scarce, but it seems likely that the zero alternant occurs in some forms of the verb, as in /orísi'àn/ 'he is untieing', but not in others as /osi'án/ 'he unties'.

⁵ Cape Coast has the normal variant of /i/ in /ebi'ásã/, and the same is regular in Mr. Nkrumah's speech.

⁶ This is, of course, no reflection on any informant for any language; many a trained linguist has raised his eyebrows the first time the junctural distinction was pointed out between the second and last words in the sentence Your highness [height] astounds me, Your Highness.

⁷ This is a case in which the morphemic consideration has determined the choice of open juncture in some cases and break in others, on the basis of the same data; however, the phonemic contrast is present between the two in terms of the preceding consonants.

⁸ The list of lexical elements referred to here and elsewhere in these pages is still in manuscript. It was originally intended as an appendix to the present work; the decision to withhold it is based on the hope that it may be published separately in the not-too-distant future, in a more complete and useful form than the present version.

⁹ A comparable analysis in English concerns the forms stink and stench, drink and drench. Though there is a morphemic relationship, a simple listing is more economical than a complicated discussion; for that matter, compare also wink and wench.

¹⁰ One historico-sociological point that has perhaps never been made before is at least worthy of a footnote. The American name Cuffy, applied as recently as a century or less ago to any Negro, has been traced to Dutch Guiana, where the form Koffi is said to have been used for a male born on Friday (H. L. Mencken, The American Language). The name is obviously the Fanti /kofí'/, with the same meaning, and indubitably has its origin in Fanti or other Akan languages.

¹¹ This form sometimes occurs without prefix initially; otherwise there seem to be few nouns with no prefix that are in the class of abstracts. Some disease names, as dubé ‘yaws’ and kondurokú ‘yellow fever’, may be abstracts, but it is not certain.

¹² The old translation of the Bible into Fanti renders I John 4:8b as niamí ní odó ‘God is (identical with) love’, which may mean also ‘Love is God’. It is reported, however, that most ministers cite the verse as niamí ye odó ‘God is (to be described as) love’, and it is also reported that the new translation of the Bible about to be or recently published has the latter form. The first is good Christian Science teaching, the latter is the only acceptable orthodox translation. One wonders whether the early translators, who were Europeans assisted by native informants, were quite aware of this distinction in Fanti. The new translation, in the hands of natives to a much larger extent, may show many other improvements over the old, besides the orthographic change which was apparently the impetus for the retranslation.

¹³ This sentence involves some of the complicated relation terms of Fanti, the second of which is translated loosely here. ina-kú‘ma is one's father's younger sister or sister-in-law; agi'a-kú‘ma is one's father's younger brother or brother-in-law.

¹⁴ Many terms for diseases occur in this construction, but several others occur in a stative construction with di. The types of diseases seem to have nothing to do with the construction; the only determination is lexical. For some, both constructions occur; e.g., awó dí-nu. or awó ábò-nu. ‘He has a cold’. Compare also ikóm di-mi. ‘I'm hungry’.

¹ The translation of this phrase is uncertain.

² The structure of this sentence seems to be as indicated in the translation, but the translation may be wrong.

³ The petrified phrase ábà éfúr, literally ‘has come new’, is given in the meaning ‘novice’; the translation ‘young people’ seems to fit better here, and probably ‘novice’ covers a narrower range of meaning than this phrase.

⁴ This is apparently a technical expression, with the literal meaning denied and the figurative meaning explained in the following sentence.

⁵ For some reason not explained by Mr. Mbura. This is a translation of the words.

⁶ This is the common term used for the introduction of two strangers; it has the specialized meaning of bringing together the two parties to a marriage in the ceremony.

⁷ The phrase in brackets, ‘all that was in the world’, did not occur in the narration at the time this was recorded, but is supplied from memory from the several other narrations I have heard but not recorded; it is included because it adds to the situation an element that otherwise would have to be assumed.

⁸ This phrase is supplied from other stories to provide a transition to the next statement.