In the world of words, where the uninvented has become as real as the air we breathe, one might wonder how a language copes with the influx of new gadgets. For the Ewe people, the answer is delightfully simple: they name them as if they were already part of the family, albeit a distant, metallic cousin.
Take, for instance, the shoe. Rather than adopting a foreign, high-flown term, they call it afɔkpa, which means “the shield of the foot.” One can imagine a weary warrior, his feet protected from the treacherous terrain of modernity by these humble leather shields. A pair of glasses? They are gankui, or “metal eyes,” as if the human eye itself were simply waiting for a metal upgrade.
A bell, that noisy little nuisance, is a gafodokui, or “the self-ringing metal,” a name that makes it sound far more dignified than it has any right to be. And a barrel is gago, “a metal gourd,” for what else is a gourd but a container for things you want to keep?
A bicycle, that marvel of two-wheeled efficiency, becomes gasɔ, “the metal horse.” It is a fitting title for a tireless stallion that requires no hay and leaves no mess, save perhaps for a squeaky chain. Even a simple nail is given a noble title. It’s not just a nail; it’s a gatakpadze, or “metal with a flat head,” a name that seems to grant it a certain intellectual weight. And the carpenter’s saw, with its incessant grinding and gnashing, is simply known as laxalaxa, for no other word could better capture its terrible sound.
This rich and wonderfully literal approach to vocabulary is evidence of the Ewe language’s ability to absorb the new without losing its charmingly homegrown soul. It is a language that does not invent so much as it renames, a linguistic alchemist that turns the strange and foreign into something deeply familiar.
Written by: Dr. George Grandy Hallow(Lecturer, King’s Business School, UK)
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