language

I have mentioned and explained once in class and in one of my web events that I am asexual aromantic, which is one reason why I have mixed feelings about My Gender Workbook. The author in many instances assumes that the audience identifies as a sexual being, and her wording often gives the impression that sexuality and gender while not the same thing, are deeply dependent on each other. And while society's impression of your gender is often connected to their impression of your sexuality, as is the language they use, self-identification of gender does not always hinge on sexuality. I still identify overall as cisfemale, even though because of societal expectations and connotations I do not feel I have access to many of the words describing cisfemales. The word woman is deeply connected to being a sexual and/or reproductive being; menstruation and the construct of losing one's virginity and engaging in sexual or romantic relations is a sign of growing up, of a girl becoming a woman. And while I have the reproductive capacities of a woman, I have no intention of using them, and the idea of being sexually or romantically involved with others bothers me to my very core. As such I will retain my "virginity" (I have no time to explain how upsetting I find that word to be), my innocence, my chastity, which keeps me in the position of a girl, which I still cannot belong to because I am an adult (also because girls are expected to grow up into women). Does that make me an adult girl? I'd rather not be.

       The 1970s saw the emergence of a new form of feminism in France, known as l’ecriture feminine, or the writing of women.  This form was introduced by French feminists such as Monique Wittig, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva, among others[1].  These influential writers and feminists asserted that traditional writing centered on the male experience and was therefore phallocentric.  This phallocentricity essentially either forced women to view the world through a male perspective in their language use, or subjugated them to silence[2].  The introduction of l‘ecriture feminine’ was meant to give a voice to the female experience and allow women to express their unique, non-male experiences and selves.  As society has marginalized women and their experiences, language has been used as a tool of institutionalized oppression and even furthered it[3].  However, language in itself is an organic, and even inherently feminist form of communication.

As promised, here are some resources on linguistic diversity in Ghana:

African Languages: An Introduction(a recent-ish reference book, with maps, to get you started - on the shelves in Canaday 1st Floor)

Ghanaian language listings with various additional info included:

CIA World FactBook - check out the Languages section on the Ghana country page... most interesting is to go to the Dynamic Statstics Tables (just click on the Languages link from the Ghana country page) and cross-compare Languages with other variables like Literacy, Ethnic Groups, Administrative Divisions, etc.

Ethnologue: Languages of Ghana - includes speaker population, region, alternate names, language family and dialects, plus link for more information

GhanaWeb: Ghanaian Languages - includes detailed info for government-sponsored and non-government-sponsored languages

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any more Dagbani language learning videos than the ones that Allison already links in her blog post (and it looks like you watched in class this week).

UCLA phonetics lab has an audio archive entry for Dagbani, but it is geared toward documenting the language not teaching a non-speaker.

I did find print resources that might be helpful... with the hefty caveat that since Dagbani, like many sub-saharan African languages, is tonal you really need to physically hear the spoken pronunciations to make progress with the language.  In any case, here they are:

• Dagbani-English dictionary
• Spoken Dagbani for Non-Dagbani Beginners

Sorry I wasn't able to locate more!