MyGhana2027.com · Languages of Ghana · Ga & Dangme
Before Accra was a capital, it was a cluster of Ga fishing towns: Ga Mashie, Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua and Tema. Further east, the Dangme peoples held the plains from Prampram to Ada and the Krobo hills. Their languages are the original voices of Greater Accra, and today, in their own capital, they are heard less than Twi.
Ga and Dangme form their own small branch, Ga-Dangme, within the Kwa languages of Niger-Congo. They are closely related, like cousins rather than siblings: a Ga speaker and a Dangme speaker share many words, but do not fully understand each other without practice.
The language of the six historic Ga towns along the coast: Ga Mashie (old Accra, around Jamestown and Usshertown), Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua and Tema. Each has its own chief and traditions within the Ga state.
Spoken east of the Ga, across the Accra plains to the Volta: Prampram, Ningo, Shai, Osudoku, Ada, and the Krobo of the hills around Odumase and Somanya, the largest Dangme group.
Ga and Dangme traditions both describe a migration from the east, across the Volta, onto the coastal plains. Where exactly they started is disputed: some traditions point towards the region of today's Benin and Nigeria. The arrival is usually placed in the 16th century or a little before.
The newcomers found Guan-speaking peoples already living on the plains and the coast. Over time the Ga and Dangme absorbed many of them, and Guan words, names and shrines survive in Ga and Dangme tradition.
The Dangme first settled around hills such as Lorlorvor in the Shai Hills, which offered protection. From there groups moved out to found Ada, Krobo, Prampram and Ningo.
The first Ga capital was not on the coast but inland, at Ayawaso, sometimes called "Great Accra", north of today's city. The move to the sea happened under pressure, and changed the Ga for ever.
From the 1600s, Dutch, Danish, English and Swedish traders built forts on the Ga coast: James Fort and Ussher Fort in Ga Mashie, Christiansborg at Osu. The coastal Ga towns grew rich as middlemen. Explore the forts and castles of Accra.
In the 1670s and 1680s the Akan state of Akwamu attacked and destroyed Ayawaso. The Ga king Okai Akwei was killed, and many Ga fled to the coast, where the towns under the forts became the new centre of Ga life.
When Accra became the capital of the Gold Coast in 1877, people arrived from every region. Today Accra is a city of millions where Twi, English, Ewe, Hausa and Pidgin are heard everywhere, and Ga lives on strongest in the old quarters. Read our Accra guide.
Once again, the first systematic grammar came from a German missionary of the Basel Mission.
A German missionary who arrived at Christiansborg in the 1850s, Zimmermann learned Ga, married a Ghanaian woman, and published a Ga grammar and dictionary in 1858. He then translated the Bible into Ga, completed in the 1860s. He also worked on Dangme.
Ga uses the Latin alphabet with letters like ɛ, ɔ and ŋ. Both Ga and Dangme are among the eleven Ghanaian languages sponsored by the state in schools.
Read more: The Basel and Bremen Missions and the church at Osu, where the Basel missionaries began.
Ga and Dangme identity lives in its festivals, most of them tied to harvest, the sea and the ancestors.
"Hooting at hunger": the Ga remember a famine their ancestors survived, and celebrate the harvest that ended it. Kpokpoi is sprinkled through the streets for the ancestors. Homowo, the festival that laughed.
The Ada warriors' festival, re-enacting old battles and honouring the men who defended the state. Asafotufiam.
The Krobo millet harvest festival, giving thanks for the crop that once fed the people in the hills. Ngmayem.
The Krobo initiation of young women into adulthood, with beads, body markings and ceremonies over several days. Dipo, the sacred rite of womanhood.
Around 7% of Ghanaians are Ga-Dangme by ethnicity, according to the 2021 census. The paradox of Ga is that its homeland became the capital: land, chieftaincy and festivals are Ga, but the city speaks many languages.
Ga stools and families still hold much of the land of Greater Accra, which makes Ga chieftaincy central to every land dispute in the city, from Labadi to Laboma.
The Krobo are famous for glass beads made from recycled glass, sold at the Koforidua bead market and worn at Dipo and other ceremonies.
Many young people in Accra grow up speaking Twi and English first. Ga activists, musicians and radio stations work to keep the language strong in its own city.
A few words that will get a smile in Jamestown, Osu or La.
Well done, hello. Used as a friendly greeting.
How are you?
I'm fine, very well.
Thank you.
Updated and fact-checked: 13 October 2026. The origin and date of the Ga-Dangme migration are disputed and based on oral tradition. Census figures are rounded.