Ghanaian

How to spell ghanaian

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce ghanaian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ghanaian mean?

1. adjectiveOf or relating to Ghana, its people, or its culture.
2. nounA person from Ghana or a citizen of Ghana.

Ghanaian in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves traditional ghanaian dishes such as jollof rice.

• noun

  As a proud ghanaian, he often spoke about his childhood in Accra.

• adjective

  She studied the ghanaian economy as part of her research project.

• noun

  The conference welcomed a ghanaian who had founded a tech startup.

Where does ghanaian come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is built on the name of the West African nation Ghana with the suffix -ian, which English uses to form words meaning 'belonging to' a place or group; that suffix descends from the Latin ending -ianus, carrying the sense 'of or relating to'. The country name itself was chosen in 1957, when the former British colony of the Gold Coast became independent, in deliberate honour of the medieval Ghana Empire that once flourished further north in West Africa. In that older empire, the word ghana was actually a royal title meaning 'warrior king', and it came to stand for the realm the ruler governed. The modern spelling keeps the unusual run of vowels (the -aia- in the middle) that trips up many writers, since the country's name ends in -a and the suffix begins with -ian, producing the awkward 'aian' cluster. Because the base name is simply transferred whole and only the familiar -ian is added, remembering to keep Ghana intact before adding -ian is the key to spelling it correctly.

How the word is built

• Ghana (the country name)
• -ian (suffix forming nationality adjectives and nouns, from Latin -ianus 'belonging to')