LAFA

Yea dude wats good with ya? Hope Y’all ain’t tripping about the freaking accident but I got it on the low side u know? What? You ain’t understanding what am talking about, what the freaking hell wrong with ya man. You still don’t understand, oops I now get it you don’t understand LAFA, but how could you; everyone knows a little bit about it. Am still getting you confused? Okay, am going to take you on the low side now. I was writing in a typical LAFA language, and – what? You also don’t understand LAFA? Ok, let’s go Ghanaian style. LAFA simply means LOCALLY ACQUIRED FOREIGN ACCENT.  Have you ever seen this lady or gentleman speaking with a foreign accent yet still you are 100% sure he has never been to the airport because since he started nursery school you have known him or her? And you wonder how he came about that accent, well that’s the LAFA. I don’t know whether to categorize it as a new form of Ghanaian language but its most spoken by the youth especially the ones found in Accra. Oh, how could you marvel at such a fact, if you have really tracked the LAFA speakers how many can you count in the northern part of Ghana? Don’t push me to the wall such truths are hard to tell. But surprisingly LAFA has a larger speaking group in Accra.

But to think of it, is it really the youth who aren’t proud of the country and therefore end up learning foreign accents or they have a good reason to back it up. I don’t blame them, in a country where everything foreign reigns, means quality, of a good standard and with much prestige why won’t we foreignize ourselves to the extent of foreignizing our tongues. Look at all that flex that these uptown people show to us when they are here in Ghana, they make you feel so bad to be where you are, pretending to be living in a perfect city where luxury is a necessity but Ghanaians as we are, the young generation in counter-attack have started learning LAFA so as to prevent such ego from this person from uptown. It’s no wonder that a Ghanaian can go spend a day in London or American airport and get back to Accra and will have a foreign accent.  If you want to impress that lady or gentleman just learn a little LAFA and you will be smiling your away from singleness. Lafa being the order of the day, I personally don’t know how far people will go to get their tongue programmed in such a way.

To me Lafa has really brought abroad home, it makes the Ghanaian youth proud in his own way to stand tall and voice out boldly even outside the country especially in Europe, after all the way they will rattle the language we do same. It indeed shows our potential. Lafa has been on for quite some time now and you will be shocked at the prestige and honor it brings to your doorstep. It is even accepted as more corporate when you do it well, especially when you mix both the American and British accents. If you going for that job interview and you really need a very high pay or badly need the job get your LAFA on I beg.  Yes because more of the corporate heads are speaking LAFA they term as educated Ghanaian English, so why not worry yourself to impress them at the interview with some quality LAFA. But I think it will be better to go with local English if your Lafa is that bad. Bad Lafa does not only ridicule your personality but implies a fake person or an imposter and you will never be taken seriously.

Coming to the media industry, if you really want to be known, appreciated and recognized as a public figure, please get on some LAFA.  Don’t go local, you know because Ghana has got to a stage in its life that something of poor quality is termed as local you know, but who will invite you for an interview on radio or television to come and talk local English, listeners are going to tune in somewhere else unless its a television or radio station for local stuff. You surprised? Why should they hail someone a public figure, when you do everything just like them and even talk like them? Where lies your exceptionality.

But this doesn’t mean every one speaking quality English is speaking LAFA, some are indeed educated Ghanaian English like what I speak and some, real accents from their various origins. But one way to identify LAFA is talking for long minutes, it will shock you to know that most LAFA speakers after very long minutes of speaking LAFA gets tired of it and switch periodically to speak the normal English they know or speak. This is where to identify LAFA speakers, if the speaker goes long minutes without the quality going down then you know that it’s an original accent or quality Ghanaian English.

But all these being said and done I believe that language is dynamic we may call it LAFA but it might just be the laws of language taking it course you know. I seriously don’t have a problem when Ghanaians speak like the black Americans, have you ever heard about blood being thicker than water? if yes then that’s it as far as they have their roots from the motherland if we love what they do means just as we are all from the same ancestors we are likely to act same. That’s blood being thicker than water indeed. To me LAFA is here to stay, it’s better we embrace it than reject it. Everyone copies once in a while funny be it when you hear some people say we copying, but they forget that in coping lies learning whether good or bad. Let’s be positive and copy positive things that will raise our morale and make us bold, strong and forever more united. God Bless Ghana.