Mfantse

Mfantse (or simply Fante, pronounced fan-tee) is the language spoken by the Mfantse people in southern Ghana. It is the language spoken by most residents in the colonial capital of Ghana, Cape Coast, and surrounding areas in the Central Region. On this page I will post some of the Mfantse I’ve learned, and any small anecdotes about the language! Note that Mfantse is written with the roman alphabet, but has 2 additional characters, ε (“eh”) and Ɔ (“wo”).

Greetings

Memawoakye (mem-o-ah-chi): Good morning

Memawoaha (mem-o-a-ha): Good afternoon

Memoadwe (mem-o-a-ju-way): Good evening

Ahinowa (ah-hee-no-wa) / A brow (ah-bra-o) / εn yado (en-yaw-do): Responses to any of the above greetings. Each person has a preferred response and they are convinced that their response is the best, and will try and convince you to use it! I say ahinowa.

Foods:

ebro (eh-bro): corn

enkatse (en-kat-seh): groundnut / peanut

entraba (en-tra-ba): garden egg / eggplant

bankye (ban-sheh): cassava

brezie (breh-zee): plantaine

edua (edge-oo-a): beans

Animals:

aponkye (a-pon-sheh): goat!

oguan (o-gwan): sheep