Ga Alphabet

Ga is written in the Latin alphabet, in this order: A B D E Ɛ F G H I J K L M N Ŋ O Ɔ P R S T U V W Y Z, 26 letters, each with a capital and a small form. Three of them are special letters: Ɛ ɛ (open e) comes right after e, Ŋ ŋ (eng) after n, and Ɔ ɔ (open o) after o, so in a Ga word list every word with ɛ follows all the words with e. C, Q and X are not part of the alphabet; they appear only in English names and words kept in their English spelling.

Several Ga sounds are written with two letters instead of a special one. gb and kp close the lips and the back of the mouth at the same moment, a sound Ga shares with Dangme, Ewe and many other West African languages, and ŋm is their nasal partner. ny is the sound of Spanish ñ, sh is as in English shop (Ga Mashie, the old heart of Accra), and ts is heard in mantsɛ, a chief, as in the Ga Mantsɛ, the king of the Ga. You type these simply as two letters, so the grid lists only the single ones.

Ga is a tonal language, yet its everyday spelling, like that of Twi and Dangme, does not mark tone with accents, so the alphabet has no accented letters. You will also see the name written Gã, with a tilde for its nasal vowel, in some books and on Wikipedia; in ordinary Ga and English writing it is simply Ga.

What ɛ, ɔ and ŋ sound like in Ga

Ga has seven oral vowels, a e ɛ i o ɔ u, and five nasal vowels; Latin has only five vowel letters, and ɛ and ɔ fill the gap. Plain e is a close e, near French été, while ɛ is the open e of English bed. Plain o is a close o, near the o of go, while ɔ is the open o of British law. Swapping one for the other can make a different word, so writing ɛ as e or ɔ as o is a spelling mistake, not a matter of style.

ŋ is the ng of English sing, and it also starts the pair ŋm. The letters ɛ and ɔ are used in Akan (Twi and Fante), Ewe and Dangme; ŋ is also used in Ewe and Dangme, but is not part of standard Akan spelling. A Ghanaian keyboard with all three covers every special letter of Akan and Dangme; Ewe also needs ɖ, ƒ, ɣ and ʋ.

Mind the look-alikes when copying: ɛ (Latin small letter open e, U+025B) is not the Greek ε epsilon, and ɔ (Latin small letter open o, U+0254) is not the reversed c ↄ. Text typed with a look-alike looks almost right but breaks search, spell-checking and sorting.

How to type the Ga alphabet on a keyboard and phone

On a phone, the easiest way is a keyboard for a Ghanaian language, such as Ga, Twi (Akan) or Ewe, where ɛ, ɔ and ŋ have their own keys or appear on a long-press of e, o and n. Or copy the letters straight from this page and paste them.

On Windows, in Microsoft Word type the code and press Alt+X: 025B gives ɛ and 0190 Ɛ, 0254 gives ɔ and 0186 Ɔ, 014B gives ŋ and 014A Ŋ. On a Mac, press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer and search for open e, open o or eng.

In HTML, write ɛ for ɛ, Ɛ for Ɛ, ɔ for ɔ, Ɔ for Ɔ, and ŋ or Ŋ for ŋ and Ŋ. The cedi sign ₵ is 20B5 then Alt+X in Word, or ₵ in HTML.

Where the Ga language is spoken

Ga is the home language of the Ga people of the Greater Accra Region of Ghana: Accra itself, with its old quarters Jamestown and Ussher Town (together Ga Mashie), and the coastal towns of Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua and Tema. CLDR estimates about 1 million speakers, and many more people in Accra understand it alongside Twi and English.

Ga's closest relative is Dangme, spoken just to the east; together they form the Ga–Dangme branch of the Kwa languages, which is why you see “Ga-Dangme” and “Ga-Adangbe” so often. Ga is one of the Ghanaian languages taught in schools, and it lives on in radio, church services, music and family names: men's names often begin with the title Nii and women's with Naa.

For money, Ga speakers use the Ghana cedi: prices are written GH₵ 20 or, with the easier cent sign, GH¢ 20. For the letters of Ghana's other languages see the Dangme, Twi (Akan) and Ewe collections, and for the flag, the cedi and the country's emoji see Ghana Emoji.

Homowo and Ga culture in emoji

Homowo, the great Ga harvest festival, is usually explained as homo, hunger, and wo, to hoot: the Ga hoot at the hunger their ancestors once survived. It falls around August and is preceded by a ban on drumming and noise in Ga areas. Its dish is kpokpoi, steamed fermented corn meal with palm oil, eaten with palm-nut soup and fish, and chiefs sprinkle it through the streets for the ancestors: 🌽 and 🐟 are the natural emoji, with 🥁 for the drums that return.

The Ga are also a fishing people, and painted canoes still line the beaches of Jamestown and Teshie. ⚰️ has a special meaning here too: Teshie is the home of the Ga figurative coffins, carved and painted in the shape of a fish, a car, a cocoa pod or a lion to honour the life of the person buried in them.