Children, Morality and Abusive Words: The Ghanaian Perspectives

Abstract

In almost every Traditional-Akan society in Ghana, generally one observes and listens to growing-up child say words such as ‘mummy or daddy’. Addition to these words is some few names of familiar people that the child struggles to mention accurately. How surprising it may look or sound, the successive words the child may speak are those words that are abusive upon hearing. However, one may want to understand the where and why children use abusive words as part of their choice of diction. Secondly, can we say whether these children comprehend the ethical/moral implications of the use of these words in their world of life? By joining this ethical/moral discourse, this paper seeks to find out the source(s), children’s understanding of abusive words by paying particular attention to words like ‘aboa’, ‘kwasia’ and ‘wo maame’. The paper concludes by suggesting some pragmatic measures that parents, teachers and guardians in Ghana can adopt to make sure that children do not become acquainted to the use of abusive words in the society.