GhanaNLP/ghana-taught-local-languages

Official Ghanaian local languages taught in schools — ISO 639-3 codes, speaker stats, and language data # Ghana Taught Local Languages The official Ghanaian local languages approved and taught in Ghanaian schools, maintained by Ghana NLP. Ghana is a multilingual nation with over 80 indigenous languages. Of these, **12 local languages** are government-sponsored and officially used as languages of instruction in basic schools across the country. In October 2025, the Ghanaian government made mother-tongue instruction compulsory at the basic school level, reinforcing the importance of these languages in education. ## Languages | # | Language | ISO 639-3 | Est. Speakers | Family | Region | |---|----------|-----------|---------------|--------|--------| | 1 | Akuapem Twi | `twi` | ~2,300,000 | Kwa | Eastern | | 2 | Asante Twi | `twi` | ~7,000,000 | Kwa | Ashanti | | 3 | Dagaare | `dga` | ~924,000 | Gur | Upper West | | 4 | Dagbani | `dag` | ~3,160,000 | Gur | Northern | | 5 | Dangme | `ada` | ~1,020,000 | Kwa | Greater Accra | | 6 | Ewe | `ewe` | ~3,820,000 | Gbe | Volta | | 7 | Fante | `fat` | ~1,170,000 | Kwa | Central | | 8 | Ga | `gaa` | ~745,000 | Kwa | Greater Accra | | 9 | Gonja | `gjn` | ~310,000 | Kwa | Northern/Savannah | | 10 | Gurene | `gur` | ~600,000 | Gur | Upper East | | 11 | Kasem | `xsm` | ~250,000 | Gur | Upper East | | 12 | Nzema | `nzi` | ~330,000 | Kwa | Western | > **Note:** Akuapem Twi and Asante Twi share ISO 639-3 code `twi` as varieties of Twi, which falls under the Akan macrolanguage (ISO 639-3: `aka`). ## Quick Stats - **Total languages:** 12 - **Total estimated speakers (L1):** ~21.7 million - **Language families represented:** 3 (Kwa, Gur, Gbe) - **All belong to:** Niger-Congo phylum - **Most spoken:** Asante Twi (~7M speakers) - **Least spoken:** Kasem (~250K speakers) ## Speaker Distribution by Family ``` Kwa Languages (7) ████████████████████████████ ~15.6M speakers Akuapem Twi ~2.3M Asante Twi ~7.0M Dangme ~1.0M Fante ~1.2M Ga ~0.7M Gonja ~0 …