Safaliba in Ghana

Safalba/Safaliba is a language spoken in northern Ghana in an area south of Wa in the Bole District of the Savannah Region. The largest Safalba town is Mandari. Safalba has about 10,000 speakers. Safalba is not a government-sponsored language, which means there is no official requirement to teach it in schools or use it in radio/television broadcasts. Indeed, public schools in Safalba-speaking areas are mandated to use reading materials in Gonja and English supplied by the Ghana Education Service, leaving Safalba "struggling for recognition in Ghana's postcolonial educational language policy" (Ari Sherris, 2020, "Safalba Community Language Awareness: 'Safalba--a dageya ka o bebee!' 'Safalba--It is important for it to exist'; Language Awareness volume 29, issue 5-4, pp 304-319).