Sounding out ideas on language, vivid sensory words, and iconicity

Category: Kawu

  • A visit to Akpafu by Nicolas Clerk, 1889

    Travel journals provide some of the first written sources on Akpafu. I have previously posted an excerpt from a 1887 journal by David Asante. This here is an excerpt from a similar journey two years later. The whole journey took three months, but this excerpt relates only a trip to two Akpafu towns on 17-18…

  • A hand drawn map of Kawu

    Colleen’s post about the Hand Drawn Map Contest reminded me of a neat map of Kawu I was given some time ago. Kawu is the area where I do fieldwork, located in the Hohoe district of Ghana’s beautiful Volta Region. This map was drawn in 2003 by John Atsu, literacy coordinator and member of the…

  • Kawu in January 1887

    The earliest description of Kawu (Akpafu) I have found so far is quite special in that it was written by an African in an African language. A German translation of it appeared in 1889 and can be found below. The original is a report of a travel made in early 1887 by David Asante. David…