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53คลิกที่สัญลักษณ์เพื่อคัดลอกและเปิดหน้าของสัญลักษณ์นั้น
Bono Twi alphabet
The 22 letters in Akan alphabetical order, capital and small: Ɛ follows E and Ɔ follows O. There is no C, J, Q, V, X or Z, and tone is not written.
Quotation marks
Ghana follows English punctuation: double curly quotes, single quotes inside them, and ’ as the apostrophe.
Currency
The Ghana cedi, written GH₵ 20 or GHS 20; GH¢ with the cent sign is the common keyboard stand-in. Côte d'Ivoire uses the CFA franc, written F CFA, which has no sign of its own.
Where it's spoken
Ghana, in the Bono and Bono East regions, and eastern Côte d'Ivoire around Bondoukou.
Talking drum
Akan talking drums reproduce the tones of the spoken language, so drummers can play names, proverbs and announcements; 🪘 is the nearest emoji.
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The Bono Twi alphabet: 22 letters with Ɛ and Ɔ
Bono, the language of the Bono people, appears in language lists as Abron (its code is abr) and in older Ghanaian usage as Brong, the name of the former Brong-Ahafo Region. It belongs to Akan, the language family of Asante Twi, Akuapem Twi and Fante, and is also called Bono Twi, though mutual intelligibility with neighbouring varieties varies.
In Ghana it is written with the standard Akan spelling: A B D E Ɛ F G H I K L M N O Ɔ P R S T U W Y, each in capital and small form. There is no C, J, Q, V, X or Z. The two letters an English keyboard lacks are Ɛ ɛ, the open e of English "bet", and Ɔ ɔ, the open o of British "law"; they follow e and o in alphabetical order. Several sounds are written with two letters: ky and gy (close to English ch and j), hy, hw, tw, dw, kw, nw and ny, as in kyɛ (share), Twi and Nyame (God).
Everyday spelling leaves tone unmarked, although Akan is a tonal language in which pitch tells words apart, and it uses seven vowel letters for a vowel system with more distinctions than that. Written down, Bono looks very much like Asante Twi; the differences are mostly in pronunciation, some words and some grammatical forms. For the shared alphabet see the Akan collection; for the flag, the cedi and the country's emoji see Ghana.
How to type ɛ and ɔ on a keyboard
On a phone, add an Akan (Twi) keyboard, which has ɛ and ɔ, or copy them straight from this page.
On Windows, in Microsoft Word, type the code and press AltX: 025B gives ɛ, 0190 Ɛ, 0254 ɔ and 0186 Ɔ. On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with ControlCommandSpace and search for "open e" or "open o". In HTML, write ɛ for ɛ, Ɛ for Ɛ, ɔ for ɔ and Ɔ for Ɔ.
In quick chats many people write 3 for ɛ and ) for ɔ (3te s3n for Ɛte sɛn?, "how is it?"), but names, signs, schoolwork and printed text look right only with the real letters. Watch the look-alikes: ɛ is not the Greek ε and Ɔ is not a reversed C (Ↄ), so search and sorting work only with the characters in this grid.
Where the Bono language is spoken
Bono is the language of the Bono and Bono East regions of Ghana, created in 2019 when the old Brong-Ahafo Region was split into three, with towns such as Sunyani, Berekum, Dormaa Ahenkro, Techiman, Wenchi, Nkoranza and Kintampo. Unicode's CLDR lists about 1.7 million literate, functional users in Ghana. Across the border, the Abron of eastern Côte d'Ivoire, centred on Bondoukou and the old Gyaman kingdom, speak it too; there the name Abron is the usual one.
The Bono trace their history to Bono Manso near Techiman, an early Akan state that grew rich on the gold and kola trade with the north until Asante conquered it in the 1720s. Traditions of Akan origins point to this area, and the Tano river, which flows through the Tano languages' home region, rises nearby.
Ghana writes amounts in cedis: is the cedi sign, and the Bank of Ghana also uses GH in its denomination labels. Related collections: Akan for the shared alphabet, and Nzima, Ga, Ewe, Adangme and Frafra for other languages of Ghana; English is the official language of Ghana and French that of Côte d'Ivoire.
How to use them
5 situationsคลิกเพื่อคัดลอกBono Twi (Abron) Alphabet combos
12ควรรู้
- Brong is an older outside form of the name Bono; Ghana's map dropped it in 2019, when Brong-Ahafo became the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions.
- Bono and all of Akan belong to the Tano languages, a branch of Kwa spoken in the region of the Tano river, which rises in the Bono East Region near Techiman.
- The word cedi comes from the Akan word for the cowrie shell, once used as money.
- Akan is tonal, but its everyday spelling writes no tone marks at all: readers tell words apart from context.
คำถามที่พบบ่อย
6What language is spoken in the Bono region?
Bono, also called Bono Twi, Brong or Abron, an Akan language close to Asante Twi. English is used in schools, offices and the media, and many people also speak Asante Twi and other Ghanaian languages.
Is Bono the same as Twi?
They are both Akan and are easily understood by each other's speakers; Bono uses the same alphabet as Asante and Akuapem Twi. Linguists list Bono (Abron) with its own code, abr, because of its own pronunciation, words and grammatical forms.
How many letters are in the Twi alphabet?
Twenty-two: a b d e ɛ f g h i k l m n o ɔ p r s t u w y. There is no c, j, q, v, x or z. Bono is written with the same letters.
How to type ɛ on keyboard?
In Word, type 025B and press AltX (0190 gives Ɛ). In HTML use ɛ. On a phone, add an Akan (Twi) keyboard or copy ɛ from this page.
How to type ɔ?
In Word, type 0254 and press AltX (0186 gives Ɔ). In HTML use ɔ. On a phone, add an Akan (Twi) keyboard or copy ɔ from this page.
Where is Abron spoken?
Bono is spoken in Ghana's Bono and Bono East regions; CLDR lists about 1.7 million literate, functional users in Ghana. Abron is also spoken around Bondoukou in eastern Côte d'Ivoire, where the people and language are usually called Abron.
