Accra, the capital of the Ga State, also serves as the national capital of Ghana and hosts virtually every important government office, from the seat of the Speaker of Parliament to the seat of the Chief Justice to the highest seat of the land, the Office of the President.
But how did the national capital get its name, Accra?
Historian Yao Anokye Frimpong, in a recent interview on Max TV, told the story behind the name of Ghana’s capital town.
According to the historian, the word Accra is a corruption of the word for ant in the Fante dialect — ‘Nkran’.
He said that the people of Accra, the Gas, used to refer to themselves as ‘Gaga’ — vicious black ants. Their trading partners, the Fantes, started referring to them by this name in their language, which eventually became corrupted to the name we have today.
“The truth is that the original name of the Gas is ‘Gaga’ — the black ants, which are very dangerous… The Gas were trying to communicate that they are as terrible as the black ants. So they called themselves Gaga.
“It was the Fantes who used to trade with the Gas who asked them what their name was, and they said ‘Gaga’. The Fantes asked them to explain what Gaga means, and the Gas told them it was the name of the black ants,” he narrated.
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He said that in the Fante language, the word for ant is ‘Nkran’, and that was who they were to Accra then, together with the Portuguese who were ruling the Fante land.
“So, the Fantes called them Nkranfoo — ant people. So, the Portuguese also called the home of the Gas, Nkran,” he said.
The historian, cum private legal practitioner, indicated that it was the British who corrupted the word Nkran to Accra.
“It was the English, who later ruled over all of us, who could not pronounce Nkran properly and were pronouncing it as ‘Akra’,” he said.
He indicated that the word ‘Akra’ later became corrupted to the current name, “Accra.”
Watch a video of his remarks below:
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