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Specimens of Folk-lore of the Gã-people on the Gold Coast1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Extract

Though the Gã are rich in folk-lore, proverbs, fables, and idiomatic sayings which refer to tribal customs, it is difficult to know just how many of these have been borrowed from the Twi—a good many, to judge by the extent to which Twi enters into their stories and songs. If a story has in it any sort of chant or ‘catch-phrase’, it is nearly always in Twi that that part is given, or Twi corrupted or mixed with Gã. Most of their tales are animal stories, and the Spider is always the clever and cunning villain of the piece, who gets caught in his own web, just as in the Brer Rabbit stories the fox gets caught in his own toils.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1930

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References

1 In the present Gã text length of vowel in a word is marked throughout by a dot following the vowel, thus nu̇ etc. The dot is used for this purpose because the negative form of the verb is also expressed by lengthening the vowel, and the two cases have to be distinguished, the negative being expressed by writing the vowel letter double: eto he keeps, neg. etoo.

In literature intended for the Gã people it will suffice to indicate vowel-length in words only in such cases where otherwise a misunderstanding might arise. This will greatly reduce the number of dots.—Editor.