Learning a language, particularly that of an indigenous community, is an interesting experience. When the learning includes their cultural practices, their history, and their general way of life, the experience becomes adventurous. Introduction to Twi for American Diasporas by John Akoful Amoh and Patti Amoh is a non-fictional book that teaches its readers how to write, read and speak Twi, an indigenous language spoken by the Akans, an ethnic group in Ghana.
The Akans are the largest ethnic group in Ghana. According to this book, they make up 49% of the country's population. However, they are further divided into several subtribes, including Ashanti, Fanti, Denkyira, Bono, Akwapim, and Akwamu. They even extend to parts of the Ivory Coast.
This book is divided into twenty-two parts. The first six parts comprise different parts of speech and their Twi translations. The remaining parts comprise Twi translations for various things, including body parts, numerals, colors, and weather. There are also many examples of word usage in a sentence.
I liked three things about this book. First, the authors gave several examples of word usage throughout the book. This makes learning easy and fun. Second, I liked how the authors used different colors for the Twi translations. This makes it easy to distinguish the English words from the Twi translations. Third, I liked how some of the explanations were accompanied by pictorial illustrations. For example, on page thirty-eight, the translations for different parts of the body are accompanied by a well-labeled diagram of the human body.
This book has so many flaws. First, I found over ten grammatical errors within the first fifteen pages of the book. Most of the sentences were not punctuated at all. Second, most of the sentences were very confusing. For example, a sentence on page seven reads,
This can be very confusing to someone struggling to understand Twi, as the meaning of the sentence is unclear. According to this book, the Akan makes up 49% of the population of Ghana. However, according to several sources, including cia.gov, their population is only between 44% and 47.5%. This made me doubt the accuracy of all other pieces of information in this book.As he came the woman was about carrying the load.
In conclusion, although this book has a good premise, the authors need to polish it and then make sure it's well-edited. I rate it 2 out of 4 stars because of the aforementioned flaws. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning Twi. Those who like adequately edited books may not enjoy it.
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Introduction to twi for american in diaspora
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