Florence Abena Dolphyne | |
---|---|
Born | Florence Abena Akesson 1938 (age 85–86) |
Nationality | Ghanaian |
Occupation(s) | Linguist Lecturer |
Years active | 1965 to 2001 |
Known for | First female University Professor in Ghana |
Title | Professor |
Spouse | Kofi Dolphyne |
Academic background | |
Education | University of Ghana |
Alma mater | University of Ghana (BA) School of Oriental & African Studies (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Ghana |
Florence Abena Dolphyne (born in 1938) is a Ghanaian linguist and academic. She was the first female professor [1] and first female pro-vice chancellor of the University of Ghana. [2]
Florence Dolphyne hails from Akyinakrom in the Ejisu-Juabeng District of the Ashanti Region. [3] Her primary school education was at the Wenchi Methodist Primary School. She continued at Achinakrom Methodist Primary School as her family had moved there. She had to sell bread and kenkey after school due to the family's low income. Her next school was at Mmofraturo Girl's Boarding School at Kumasi in the Ashanti Region as her father was then a Methodist minister at Manso Atwere. [4]
Florence Dolphyne had a senior high school education at the Wesley Girls Senior High School,Cape Coast. [5] Her sixth form education was at Mfantsipim School at Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana. This was then a boys' school with a mixed sixth form section. She distinguished herself there by being the first female student to win a prize at the school. [4]
Dolphyne entered the University of Ghana in 1958 and graduated with a BA(Hons) degree in English in 1961. [6] [7] She obtained a scholarship [4] which enabled her to pursue postgraduate studies at the School of Oriental &African Studies of the University of London in the United Kingdom where she obtained her PhD in Phonetics and Linguistics in 1965 with a dissertation entitled "The phonetics and phonology of the verbal piece in the Asante dialect of Twi". [8] [9]
Florence Dolphyne was a lecturer and researcher. [7] Her first job was as a teacher at the Labone Senior High School in Accra for a year. After her postgraduate studies,she joined the academic staff of the University of Ghana in September 1965. She was one of the founding members of the Department of Linguistics and Ghanaian Languages of the University of Ghana. She was joined by one other Ghanaian,Lawrence Boadi and some expatriates,Alan Duthie,Mrs. McCallien,Lindsay Criper and Helmut Truteneau. [10] She rose to become the Head of the Linguistics Department,a position she held on two separate occasions. She also became Senior Tutor and Warden of Volta Hall,the only female hall of residence at the time. [4] Florence Dolphyne was appointed Professor of Linguistics in 1996. [11] She also served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the university. She was awarded an honorary doctorate (D.Litt) by the University of Ghana in 2004. [8]
Florence Dolphyne was a founding member,with Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu and others,of the Linguistic Circle of Accra in 1967,which evolved into the Linguistic Association of Ghana. [12] She was also involved with the West African Linguistics Society [8] and served as its president. [13]
Florence Dolphyne has been the chairperson of the National Council for Women and Development in Ghana. She has also been one of the commissioners who sat on the National Reconciliation Commission (2002 to 2004) which looked into the effects of military rule on people in Ghana. [4] She has also been first and second Vice President of the Bible Society of Ghana. She was also a member of the Methodist University College Council and has been a Conference Member of Methodist Church,Ghana since 1999. [8]
Dolphyne has also held visiting scholar positions at various institutions including University of Ibadan in Nigeria,Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone,Michigan State University and University of California,Los Angeles in the United States. She is a Fulbright Senior Scholar. She has been the Chairperson of the Ghana Education Service between 2002 and 2006. She has also been a board member of the Ghana Education Trust Fund and VALCO Trust Fund. [8]
Florence Dolphyne was the first woman to be appointed a Professor in Ghana. [6] She was the first female pro-vice chancellor of the University of Ghana as well. [14]
The University of Ghana organised an event themed “New Frontiers in Language Studies in Ghana”on the occasion of her 80th birthday to honour her. [6]
A special issue of the Ghana Journal of Linguistics dedicated to Professor Dolphyne appeared in 2018. [15]
Florence Dolphyne was the first surviving child born to her parents. Her father was a Methodist minister from the Nzema people of Esiama in the Western Region of Ghana. Her mother was from Achinakrom near Ejisu. She had a sister and three brothers. She married Kofi Dolphyne,an aircraft engineer whom she met in London. [4]
Yaa Asantewaa I was the Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire, now part of modern-day Ghana. She was appointed by her brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Okese, the Edwesuhene, or ruler, of Edwesu. In 1900, she led the Ashanti war also known as the War of the Golden Stool, or the Yaa Asantewaa War of Independence, against the British Empire.
The Dangme language, also Dangme or Adaŋgbi, is a Kwa language spoken in south-eastern Ghana by the Dangme People (Dangmeli). The Dangmeli are part of the larger Ga-Dangme ethnic group. Klogbi is a variant, spoken by the Kloli. Kropp Dakubu (1987) is the most thorough grammar of the language.
Akan is a group of several closely related languages within the wider Central Tano languages. These languages are the principal native languages of the Akan people of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana. About 80% of Ghana's population can speak an Akan language as a first or second language, and about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers. There are populations of polyglots in Ghana who speak an Akan language as a third language. They are also spoken in parts of Côte d'Ivoire.
Logba is a Kwa language spoken in the south-eastern Ghana by approximately 7,500 people. The Logba people call themselves and their language Ikpana, which means ‘defenders of truth’. Logba is different from Lukpa of Togo and Benin, which is also sometimes referred to as Logba.
The Akan people of Ghana frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. These "day names" have further meanings concerning the soul and character of the person. Middle names have considerably more variety and can refer to their birth order, twin status, or an ancestor's middle name.
Fante, also known as Fanti, Fantse, or Mfantse, is one of the four principal members of the Akan dialect continuum, along with Asante, Bono and Akuapem, the latter three collectively known as Twi, with which it is mutually intelligible. It is principally spoken in the central and southern regions of Ghana as well as in settlements in other regions in western Ghana, Ivory Coast, as well as in Liberia, Gambia and Angola.
Wesley Girls' High School (WGHS) is an educational institution for girls in Cape Coast in the Central region of Ghana. It was founded in 1836 by Harriet Wrigley, the wife of a Methodist minister. The school is named after the founder of Methodism, John Wesley.
Ghana is a multilingual country in which about eighty languages are spoken. Of these, English, which was inherited from the colonial era, is the official language and lingua franca. Of the languages indigenous to Ghana, Akan is the most widely spoken in the south. Dagbani is most widely spoken in the north.
Reggie Rockstone is a Ghanaian rapper. He was born in the United Kingdom but lived his early years in Kumasi and Accra. He has been living in Ghana continuously since he pioneered the Hip-Life movement in 1994. He is married to Dr. Zilla Limann, Daughter of Hilla Limann, the only president of the third Republic of Ghana. They have three kids together and have been married since 2001.
Bono, also known as Abron, Brong, and Bono Twi, is a Central Tano language common to the Bono people and a major dialect of the Akan dialect continuum, and thus mutually intelligible with the principal Akan dialects of Asante and Akuapem, collectively known as Twi. It is spoken by 1.2 million in Ghana, primarily in the Central Ghanaian region of Brong-Ahafo, and by over 300,000 in eastern Ivory Coast.
The University of Ghana Primary School is a primary school located on the campus of the University of Ghana in Legon, Greater Accra Region, Ghana. It was established at a temporary location in Achimota in 1955 to educate the children of university faculty and staff.
The Gold Coast alphabet also Gold Coast language was a Latin alphabet used to write the Akan language during the Gold Coast era, now Ghana. It differed from the current Akan alphabet in several ways, of which the most fundamental was in vowel notation.
Abena Pokua Adompim Busia is a Ghanaian writer, poet, feminist, lecturer and diplomat. She is a daughter of the former prime minister of Ghana, Kofi Abrefa Busia, and is the sister of actress Akosua Busia. Busia is an associate professor of Literature in English, and of women's and gender studies at Rutgers University. She is Ghana's ambassador to Brazil, appointed in 2017, with accreditation to the other 12 republics of South America.
Pearl Akanya Ofori is a Ghanaian broadcast journalist, radio personality and an entrepreneur who once worked for Ghanaian radio station Citi FM (97.3) Ghana. She is a graduate of the University of Ghana (Legon). She was nominated for the Radio and Television Personality Awards (RTP) organized by Big Event Ghana in 2015 Radio and TV Personality Award.
Johann Gottlieb Christaller was a German missionary, clergyman, ethnolinguist, translator and philologist who served with the Basel Mission. He was devoted to the study of the Twi language in what was then the Gold Coast, now Ghana. He was instrumental, together with African colleagues, Akan linguists, David Asante, Theophilus Opoku, Jonathan Palmer Bekoe, and Paul Keteku in the translation of the Bible into the Akuapem dialect of Twi. Christaller was also the first editor of the Christian Messenger, the official news publication of the Basel Mission, serving from 1883 to 1895. He is recognised in some circles as the "founder of scientific linguistic research in West Africa".
Rose Akua Ampofo was a Ghanaian educator and gender advocate who became the first woman in Ghana to be ordained a Presbyterian minister. Between 1992 and 2002, she was the founding Director of the Presbyterian Women's Training Centre (PWTC) at Abokobi. From October 2002 until her death in March 2003, she was the Head of the Women and Gender Desk of Mission 21, formerly known as the Basel Mission in Basel, Switzerland.
Abena Frempongmaa Daagye Oduro is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Ghana where she also holds the position of Associate Professor of the Department of Economics. Having had 30 years of experience teaching, her areas of specialization are centred around gender and asset management, international economics, poverty analysis, macroeconomic theory and trade policy. Abena Oduro is the first Vice President of the Association for the Advancement of African Women Economists (AAAWE) where Professor of Economics in University of Kansas, Elizabeth Asiedu, is the founder and president. She is also the president elect of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), her tenure will be 2021 to 2022.
Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu was an American linguist based in Ghana, known for her work on Ghanaian languages. She was professor emerita at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, where she had been affiliated since 1964.
Alan Stewart Duthie was a Scottish linguist and academic who settled and worked in Ghana all his adult life. He was a pioneer in linguistics at the University of Ghana, Legon, for 49 years.
Samuel Gyasi Obeng is a Ghanaian-American linguist. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and the Director of the West African Languages Institute (WALI) at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB). He is affiliated with IUB’s Linguistics Department, African Studies Program and holds Adjunct Professorship positions in the Departments of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Islamic Studies
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