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A study has shed new light on the linguistic environment of Ghanaian infants, revealing that most babies in the country grow up surrounded by multiple languages.
The research, conducted by a team led by Potsdam University psycholinguists Prof. Dr. Natalie Boll-Avetisyan and Paul O. Omane, underscores that the roots of Africa’s renowned multilingualism can be traced back to infancy.
The study, recently published in the journal Cognitive Development, examined 121 babies aged three to twelve months in Ghana’s capital, Accra. It found that these infants are regularly exposed to between two and six languages, reflecting the multilingual nature of Ghanaian society. The number of caregivers each child interacts with also ranges from two to six, reinforcing the diversity of linguistic input.
“The idea that a child learns only one particular language from a single caregiver, as is often assumed in Western cultures, does not apply to these communities. Rather, children are surrounded by a rich spectrum of linguistic inputs from the very beginning,” said Paul O. Omane, the study’s first author.
Ghanaian families often reside in “compound buildings,” where extended family members, neighbours, and relatives contribute significantly to child-rearing. These communal settings foster a natural multilingual environment, with infants hearing different languages from various sources.
A key discovery of the study is the distinction between direct and indirect language input. Local languages such as Akan, Ga, and Ewe are primarily acquired through direct interactions with caregivers. In contrast, English is predominantly absorbed through indirect means, such as television, radio, and official communication.
“It is often emphasized how important direct language contact is for language acquisition,” said Prof. Dr. Natalie Boll-Avetisyan. “However, our results suggest that indirect input – especially through media and official communication – also plays an essential role in the children’s daily lives, particularly in urban contexts.”
The study challenges existing linguistic research paradigms, which have historically focused on monolingual or bilingual environments in Western industrialized nations. The researchers argue that these narrow perspectives fail to capture the complex and dynamic multilingual realities in countries like Ghana.
“Our research shows that for many children, a multilingual environment is a dynamic, vibrant reality from the very beginning. Multilingualism is not just a bonus, but a fundamental part of children’s identity and social structure,” the researchers concluded.
The findings provide valuable insights for linguists, educators, and policymakers, highlighting the need to embrace diverse linguistic environments and rethink traditional approaches to language acquisition.
The study on the Internet: Omane, P. O., Benders, T., & Boll-Avetisyan, N. (2025). Exploring the nature of multilingual input to infants in multiple caregiver families in an African city: The case of Accra (Ghana). Cognitive Development. In press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101558
