Ghana has finally discovered a remarkably peaceful way of ensuring equality among all our indigenous languages.
We have placed all of them beneath English.
The discovery came to public attention after the Executive Secretary of the Bureau of Ghana Languages, Ebenezer Ahiator, told Parliament’s Committee on Chieftaincy, Culture and Religious Affairs that Ghana should not adopt one indigenous language as a national language.
The reason is understandable.
If we choose one Ghanaian language, speakers of the remaining languages may feel that theirs have been declared second-class citizens.
And so, in the great Ghanaian tradition of solving a quarrel between two brothers by giving the family property to the neighbour, we have apparently settled the matter.
English wins.
Nobody is offended.
Except perhaps the Ghanaian languages.
The argument has since entered Facebook, that unofficial second chamber of Parliament where every Ghanaian possesses a constituency, a microphone and an unlimited speaking time.
Within hours, the matter had ceased to be about linguistics.
It became history.
Colonialism entered.
Tribalism arrived carrying a chair.
Politics appeared without invitation.
Then somebody mentioned Twi, and the meeting was properly constituted.
The problem with discussing a national language in Ghana is that the moment somebody proposes Twi, another person does not hear merely a language.
He hears Kumasi.
He hears Akan dominance.
He hears somebody arriving with linguistic luggage and attempting to occupy the national sitting room.
The Twi advocate, meanwhile, is equally puzzled.
He points to the market woman in Tamale bargaining with a trader from Kumasi.
He points to the trotro mate in Accra.
He points to churches, radio stations, workplaces and roadside conversations.
“Are we not already speaking it?” he asks.
This is where Ghanaian reality becomes troublesome.
A language does not always wait for Parliament to pass a law before becoming useful.
Markets have their own constitutions.
Transport stations conduct their own referenda.
Long before committees, consultants and stakeholder engagements arrive, ordinary people sometimes solve communication problems by simply opening their mouths.
Twi, in various forms, has undoubtedly acquired wide currency beyond Akan communities.
But widespread use is not the same thing as national ownership.
A goat may enter every compound in the village; that does not automatically make it the village chief.
Those who resist the elevation of one indigenous language therefore have a legitimate concern.
Ghana is not linguistically empty land waiting for the largest language group to plant a flag.
Ewe carries history.
Ga carries memory.
Dagbani carries civilisation.
Dagaare, Gonja, Nzema, Fante, Kasem, Gurene, Dangme, Likpakpaanl and many others carry entire worlds inside them.
A language is not merely a collection of words.
It is where a people store their jokes, insults, prayers, proverbs, courtship, grief and wisdom.
You cannot therefore tell a people, “Do not worry, your language is still important,” immediately after giving another language a national crown, and expect everybody to continue eating peacefully.
Our elders knew this.
When one child receives a bigger piece of meat, the other children suddenly develop advanced skills in measurement.
So the Bureau’s caution deserves respect.
But then we arrive at the uncomfortable part.
If giving special status to one Ghanaian language risks making the others feel inferior, what exactly have we been doing with English?
English occupies Parliament.
English dominates our courts.
English carries most official correspondence.
English sits at the top of the educational ladder.
English conducts job interviews.
English writes the examination that determines whether the child who speaks brilliant Gurene at home is considered academically promising.
And then, after English has occupied the best chair in the room, we tell the Ghanaian languages not to quarrel among themselves because equality is important.
There is a proverb trying desperately to be born here.
The chicken is being warned not to step on the toes of the guinea fowl while the hawk is sitting on the roof.
This is why the debate cannot simply be reduced to “Twi versus the rest.”
The bigger issue is the position of indigenous languages in Ghanaian public life.
Our Constitution itself, under Article 39(3), requires the State to foster the development of Ghanaian languages and pride in Ghanaian culture.
Parliament’s Standing Orders even allow Members to contribute in Ghanaian languages where interpretation is available.
Indeed, Speaker Alban Bagbin has publicly advocated greater use of local languages in parliamentary proceedings.
Yet anyone who has watched Parliament knows where linguistic power actually resides.
English remains the gatekeeper.
An MP may understand perfectly the anxieties of an elderly constituent in Bongo, Keta or Bekwai, but when he rises in the House to explain those anxieties, the Queen’s language, now inherited by King Charles, generally supervises proceedings.
We have therefore created a strange democracy in which citizens are encouraged to participate fully, provided the conversation eventually passes through English.
And English is not neutral merely because no Ghanaian ethnic group owns it.
It may be ethnically neutral, but it is not socially neutral.
The Ghanaian who speaks polished English often receives an immediate intellectual promotion.
The citizen struggling with English may possess acres of wisdom, but by the third grammatical accident, society has quietly reduced his academic rank.
We have all witnessed it.
A man can explain cocoa farming, rainfall patterns, soil behaviour and local economics brilliantly in his mother tongue.
Ask him to repeat the same thing before television cameras in English and suddenly people begin treating him as if the knowledge evaporated somewhere between “Good evening” and “Actually.”
We confuse language proficiency with intelligence at our peril.
Yet the answer cannot simply be to replace English with Twi tomorrow morning and declare the matter settled before lunch.
That would merely exchange one form of linguistic anxiety for another.
Other countries have found different arrangements.
Some maintain an international language while elevating one indigenous language as a national unifier.
Others recognise several official languages.
Some build multilingual systems around regions, education and government services.
Ghana does not need to photocopy Kenya, Tanzania or South Africa.
But neither must we behave as though the only available options are English forever or tribal war by Friday.
Perhaps the real national conversation should begin elsewhere.
What do we want a national language to achieve?
Identity?
Administrative convenience?
Access to government?
Education?
National unity?
Cultural preservation?
Once we answer that question, we may discover that “Which single language should defeat all the others?” was the wrong examination question from the beginning.
Perhaps English can remain an important international and administrative language while Ghana deliberately creates greater national space for several indigenous languages.
Perhaps Parliament should invest seriously in interpretation.
Perhaps government communication should routinely appear in major Ghanaian languages.
Perhaps our children should leave school able to read and write at least one Ghanaian language with the same confidence with which we celebrate their English.
Perhaps speaking impeccable English while being unable to write three correct sentences in your mother tongue should no longer be regarded automatically as evidence of educational progress.
There is something slightly unsettling about a country becoming fluent in everybody else’s language while gradually losing confidence in its own voices.
The Bureau of Ghana Languages is right about one thing.
No Ghanaian language should be allowed to die.
But languages do not die only because another indigenous language becomes dominant.
They also die from neglect.
They die when parents stop speaking them to children.
They die when schools treat them as educational side dishes.
They die when public officials use them only during election campaigns.
They die when educated people begin apologising before speaking them.
And they certainly do not grow stronger merely because English has been appointed neutral referee.
So by all means, let us protect every Ghanaian language from feeling inferior.
But while we are arranging the chairs carefully so that Twi does not sit above Ewe, Ga does not sit above Dagbani and Fante does not offend Nzema, perhaps somebody should look towards the head of the table.
English has been sitting there quietly for a very long time.
And judging by the current debate, it has even convinced us that it is not sitting there at all.
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