Fante: the orthography versus speech

This paper aims to show the relationship between the writing system of Fante and its spoken form, and to explore the extent to which Fante orthography can be said to be phonemic. This involves a consideration of the correlation between the vowel and consonant phonemes and their symbolization in the orthography, and of the account taken of nasalization, length, elision, assimilation, and vowel harmony. The proposed Unified Akan Orthography (The Bureau of Ghana, Legon: 1978) is discussed in this light. The term Akan is used to refer to the Fante and Twi dialects of Southern Ghana.