Language Contact in Santrokofi, a Ghana-Togo Mountain Language Community: Impact on Selee

Abstract

The present study examines the language contact situation in Santrokofi, in Ghana, where Selee, a Ghana-Togo Mountain language, enjoys a good degree of maintenance although it is in triglossic contact with Ewe, Akan, and English. With insight from the triglossic structure model, we collected and analysed quantitative and qualitative data which revealed that Selee is the natives’ ingroup language while Ewe (and to a limited extent, Akan) is their intergroup informal language with “others”; English is the dominant language of classroom interactions and other formal settings. There is evidence of lexical borrowing into Selee from the other languages, especially English and Ewe. The youth may be said to be holding on to Selee impressively, but this ongoing language maintenance may be put to the test by the looming encroachment of Santrokofi by Hohoe, the neighbouring major township where most public servants in Santrokofi currently reside.

Keywords:

• Ghana-Togo Mountain
• language contact
• language maintenance
• language shift
• lexical borrowing
• Santrokofi
• Selee
• sociolinguistics
• triglossia