Age, gender, and locality effects on innovation in the Twi vowel harmony system

Languages of Africa show considerable variation and change but remain underrepresented in sociolinguistics. In this study, we explored social predictors of an ongoing sound change in the Twi Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony system by acoustically examining production variation in a stratified sample of 105 speakers representing urban and traditional localities in Ghana. In the urban locality, the change was evident in all age groups and near completion in the youngest generation. In the traditional locality, by contrast, the change was evident only in some younger speakers. The effect of gender differed between localities: urban men were more advanced in the change than urban women, whereas traditional speakers showing the change were predominantly women. By reflecting the gender dynamics of societal engagement and contact in Ghana, these findings highlight the importance of local social context for the manifestation of variation and the unique insights of non-Western communities for sociolinguistic theory.