Languages in Ghana: On the Need and Search for a Policy

Language policy formulation in Ghana is fueled by the attempt to manage language use in this highly multilingual nation. That is, language policy formulation is a language management activity. In situations where languages compete for roles with their users not in any way ready or willing to give in (as most Ghanaian often are) is a cause for concern. Dialogue and participation will be affected for the fact that people have no way of comprehending each other or documenting their aspirations, achievements and even their shared identity/identities in a medium that all are willing to promote, or which is comprehensible to all. Ghana is an agglomeration of diverse ethnic groups that were put together by the British in its period of world domination and colonization. In the end, the language of the colonialist, English, is what became, significantly, the relevant incentive to unite them both in their quest for independence and, afterwards, their continuous survival as a nation. Therefore, English has had a central role in Ghana’s language management efforts, with language policies being about English and selected indigenous/community languages. With English as its official language, Ghana has had basically three language policies in which English and the selected community languages are at the center and have been assigned roles with respect to each other. The trend is that with English as the medium of instruction, a community language is studied as a subject, and vice versa. The policies have been mentioned here as: (i) The English-only policy, (ii) the English-medium-from-P2 policy, and (iii) the English-medium-from-P4 policy. Once English takes over as the medium of instruction, it continues all the way to the university level. The favorability English has over indigenous languages as medium of instruction is largely the fact that it is the official language of Ghana.