Africa is a multilingual continent and many adults speak several languages fluently. An empirical study by a research team led by Potsdam psycholinguists Prof Dr Natalie Boll-Avetisyan and Paul O. Omane now shows that the roots of this multilingualism lie in infancy: In Ghana, babies predominantly grow up multilingual, with most of them coming into contact with two to six languages and just as many regular input providers.
Potsdam/Germany, February 25, 2025. The researchers also showed that the babies tended to hear some languages indirectly – i.e. via radio, television or background conversations – while others were used by the contact persons to communicate with them directly. The results of the study have now been published in the journal ‘Cognitive Development’.
The study, which examined 121 babies aged three to twelve months in the capital of Ghana, Accra, shows a remarkable diversity of language input in the early months of life. The children are regularly exposed to between two and six languages. A parallel can be seen in the number of caregivers the children have: babies who have more adults in their daily lives who regularly look after them also hear more different languages. In the typical Ghanaian living conditions, the so-called ‘compound buildings’, many everyday interactions take place in the courtyard, where family as well as neighbours and other relatives play an important role in the children’s lives.
‘The idea that a child only learns a specific 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 input from the very beginning,’ says the study’s lead author Paul O. Omane. ‘The majority of studies on children’s language acquisition to date have been conducted in Western industrialised nations, which is why their focus is often on a rather narrow concept of multilingualism. Our study shows that this does not apply to other societies with a vibrant multilingual environment,’ adds the lead researcher of the study, Prof Dr Natalie Boll-Avetisyan.
A key finding of the study is the distinction between direct and indirect language input. While English is primarily taught through indirect channels such as television and official communication, children acquire most other local languages (such as Akan, Ga and Ewe) through direct contact with their caregivers. Interestingly, the proportion of direct input in the local languages is higher than for English, which is predominantly present as indirect input.
‘It is always emphasised how important direct language contact is for language acquisition,’ says Natalie Boll-Avetisyan. ‘However, our results suggest that indirect input – particularly through the media and official communication – also plays a significant role, especially in urban contexts.’
As a result of their empirical study, the researchers are calling for a broader perspective in language research. The common assumptions do not reflect the diversity and complexity that can be found in other cultural contexts such as Ghana. The study makes it clear that it is not just the number of languages a child hears, but also the diversity of people and the different forms of input that have a decisive influence on language acquisition. ‘Our research shows that for many children, a multilingual environment is a dynamic, living reality from the very beginning. Multilingualism is not just a bonus, but a fundamental part of children’s identity and social structure,’ says the researcher.
Study 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
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