Introducing Nkami: The forgotten Guang language of Ghana

This paper introduces a group of people and an endangered language called Nkami. I
discuss issues concerning the historical, geo-political, religious, socio-economic and
linguistic backgrounds of the people. Among others, it is shown that Nkami is a South-
Guang language spoken by approximately 400 people in a resettlement community in the
Afram Plains of Ghana. The overwhelming factor that preserves the language and holds
its speakers together is the traditional institution of Afram (deity). Linguistically, Nkami
is distinct from other regional languages. The data for the study were extracted from
a large corpus collected from a documentation project on the language and people. In
addition to introducing Nkami, this study also provides valuable data for future research
as well as deepens our knowledge of other Guang and other regional languages.
Keywords: Nkami, Guang languages, Kwa language family, endangered undocumented
language, areal-typological linguistic features.