Ga ethnicity

Simo Bobda (2000b: 188) maintains that while a generation ago /ɔ/ was still associated with the Gas, today “the prevalence of /a/ approximates 100% across all ethnic groups”. Judging from my data, this somewhat overstates the case. First, even my oldest non-Ga speakers, born in the early years of the 20th century, show a high rate of /ɔ/ for RP /Λ/ (cf. also Schachter's 1962: 18 observation on Twi-speakers around 1960 to the same effect). It is doubtful, therefore, whether /ɔ/ had ever been an exclusively Ga characteristic. As to the rate of /ɔ/ in today's GhE, I concur that /a/ has been gaining ground, but it is still far from categorical. This is also exemplified by the recording. Both speakers use 12 tokens each of the STRUT set.

Speaker A, whose L1 is Hausa, realizes 10 of these with an /a/ (83%), and Speaker B, whose L1 is Twi, 8 (67%).