Gilbert Ansre | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | |
| Nationality | Ghanaian |
| Occupation(s) | Linguist Lecturer Priest |
| Title | Professor |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of London |
| Thesis | The grammatical units of Ewe : a study of their structure, classes and systems (1966) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Linguist |
| Sub-discipline | Ghanaian languages |
| Institutions | University of Ghana |
Gilbert Ansre is a Ghanaian linguist,academic,priest and Bible translation consultant. [1]
He attended the Presbyterian Boys' Senior High School which was then known as the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School at Odumase in the Eastern Region of Ghana. His university education was at the University of London where he graduated in 1966. The thesis he submitted was on "The grammatical units of Ewe :a study of their structure,classes and systems". [2]
He worked at the University of Ghana where he was a professor in Linguistics. He first set up and led the Department of Linguistics at the University of Ghana. [3] He was the Master of Akuafo Hall of the university between 1975 and 1979. [4] His area of interest includes tone and syntax of the Ewe language.
Ansre has also lectured at the Good News Theological College and Seminary at Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region. [5]
Gilbert Ansre is an ordained reverend minister of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church,Ghana. [3] [6] [7]
Ansre has been actively involved with Bible Translation work in Ghana and Togo. He was the Technical Advisor to the NYALOTA project to develop the Nyagbo,Tafi and Logba languages in the Volta Region of Ghana into written form. [8] In 2017,he was the Chairman of the joint technical committee of the Bible Society of Ghana and GIILBT to analyze the Bible Translation needs of Ghana. [9] He has been active in the work of the GILLBT especially in the area of translation of the Bible into various West African Languages. [10] This has included the Ewe language,his own language as well as thirteen others. [3]
The Trinity Theological Seminary,Legon has an academic chair established in honour of Ansre and Kwesi Dickson. This is the Kwesi Disckson-Gilbert Ansre Distinguished Chair of Biblical Exegesis &Mother Tongue Hermeneutics. [11] The contribution of Gilbert Ansre to the development of Ghanaian languages was recognised by the Ghana Institute of Linguistics,Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT),which awarded him the "Kwame Nkrumah African Genius award for African Languages" in February 2015 in Accra. [12] [13]
Gilbert Ansre was named after his father,Gilbert Bansah Ansre who was also a Presbyterian minister and was also a graduate of University of Edinburgh. His mother was Felicia Angelica Ansre (née Nane). [14]
The Adele language is spoken in central eastern Ghana and central western Togo. It belongs to the geographic group of Ghana Togo Mountain languages of the Kwa branch of Niger–Congo. The speakers themselves, the Adele people, call the language Gidire.
Ewe is a language spoken by approximately 20 million people in West Africa, mainly in Ghana, Togo and Benin, and also in some other countries like Liberia and southwestern Nigeria. Ewe is part of a group of related languages commonly called the Gbe languages. The other major Gbe language is Fon, which is mainly spoken in Benin. Like many African languages, Ewe is tonal as well as a possible member of the Niger-Congo family.
The Gbe languages form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe, followed by Fon. The Gbe languages were traditionally placed in the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo languages, but more recently have been classified as Volta–Niger languages. They include five major dialect clusters: Ewe, Fon, Aja, Gen (Mina), Gun and Phla–Pherá.
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Kwesi Abotsia Dickson was a Ghanaian Christian theologian. He was the seventh President of the Methodist Church Ghana and a professor at the University of Ghana, Legon.
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The Trinity Theological Seminary is a Protestant seminary located on a 70-acre campus in Legon, Accra. As an ecumenical theological tertiary and ministerial training institution, it serves students in Ghana and the West African sub-region. The focus of the curriculum is pedagogy, guidance, counselling, and fieldwork to adequately prepare students for careers in Christian ministry. The school has charter status, offers certificate, diploma, and degree programmes, and is accredited by the National Accreditation Board of the Ghanaian Ministry of Education.
The Salem School, Osu, or the Osu Presbyterian Boys’ Boarding School or simply, Osu Salem, formerly known as the Basel Mission Middle School, is an all boys’ residential middle or junior secondary school located in the suburb of Osu in Accra, Ghana. The Salem School was the first middle school and the first boarding school to be established in Ghana. The school was founded under the auspices of the Basel Mission in 1843 and supervised by three pioneering missionaries and schoolmasters, Jamaican, Alexander Worthy Clerk and Angolan-born Jamaican Catherine Mulgrave together with the German-trained Americo-Liberian George Peter Thompson.
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Christian Gonçalves Kwami Baëta was a Ghanaian academic and a Presbyterian minister who served as the Synod Clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1945 to 1949. He was among a number of prominent individuals, corporate organisations and civil society groups that were instrumental in the establishment of the University of Ghana, Legon in 1948.
Ferdinand Koblavi Dra Goka (1919-2007) was a Ghanaian teacher and politician. He was a Volta Regional minister, and as Ghana's second finance minister during the first republic. He is often credited as the man who changed the name of Trans Volta Togoland to the Volta Region.
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