It’s my mother-in-law who started it. When she said it at first, she was calm about it. It didn’t sound like she intended any malice, so I took it like a joke and moved on with my life. She told me, “Stop speaking that language to him. He doesn’t understand it.”

I’m a Fante. I got a job here in the Volta Region and met my husband, who’s an Ewe. I mean, full-blooded Ewe. He could speak a little Twi when we met, so both of us spoke English very often until we fell in love. He spoke Twi when he proposed to me, and it’s the funniest proposal I’d ever had in my life. I said yes in English.

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He said, “Why am I speaking Twi to you and you’re responding in English?” I responded, “One, because I’m an Ashanti, and two, what you spoke isn’t really Twi. Come again with a better one, and I would speak the same.”

That’s how our love story began. Whenever he wanted to be mischievous, he tried to speak Twi. Other than that, we only spoke English. He introduced me to his parents, and they couldn’t speak any other language apart from Ewe and English. They are very educated, and that helped.

He used to live with his parents, and because I was a stranger in town, I had rented a small place where I had begun my life. I went to his house every day and met his parents. They were very nice to me. His mom was very particular about the language, so she always asked if I was learning the language. I told her I was trying.

She would speak a few words to me and later explain in English. We bonded over that, and through her, I could speak the basics and a few insults here and there. She would also teach me how to cook their meals. That one, I got very quickly, so I was even making their meals sometimes.

And then we got married. My husband and I rented a place not too far from their house. Five minutes’ drive and you’re at their place.

The marriage itself has been very good, I must say. His parents come around here very often, and sometimes they would stay the night. Both his dad and mom. Sometimes one of them would crash here and end up spending the night.

We had our first child, and his mom came to live with me. I saw a pattern but ignored it. She didn’t like the way I took care of the baby. When I bathed him the way I was taught by my mom, she said it was wrong. I could bathe him, and a few minutes later, she would also bathe him too.

She has a way of massaging the baby. Very vigorous. I hated it, but she told me that was how she did it to my husband and he didn’t die. Even when the nurses had advised us not to give the baby water, my mother-in-law would give the baby water. When he was one year old, she was feeding him some leaves and water and also giving him cooked leaves.

I didn’t like any of that, but I didn’t have the right to raise an objection. My husband wouldn’t support me, and I would be alone. It was when we were alone that I complained to my husband.

My child is three years old now, and everyone around here speaks Ewe, so for him to also be able to communicate with me and my relatives, I started speaking Fante to him. I didn’t speak English to him no matter what. My husband spoke only Ewe to him. No English. My in-laws too.

And then one day, my mother-in-law heard me speaking my language to him. She asked me to stop because the child wouldn’t understand it. I said in my head, “He wouldn’t understand Fante but would understand Ewe? How is that even something she should tell me?”

Then it moved from being a suggestion to a warning, and then it became violent. She screamed, “How many times do you want me to tell you this? Stop speaking that silly language to the boy. He doesn’t understand it.”

Then she switched into Ewe and rattled on for minutes non-stop. My husband wasn’t far from me. He heard everything. When I asked what his mom was saying, he responded, “She didn’t say anything. If she doesn’t want you to speak that language, why don’t you stop it?”

I asked him, “Stop it and speak what language to my own child?”

He responded, “If you can’t speak Ewe, speak English.”

“I won’t speak any English. How do you want my mom to communicate with him when she meets him?”

Then he said I shouldn’t speak Fante to the child when his mom is around, but his mom is always around. She lives with us, cooks our meals, does everything concerning this boy, and does it the way Ewes do. If I introduce the Fante way of doing things to my child, this woman would fight it tooth and nail.

I can be that stubborn if I want to. I’ve bent forward and backward just to make his mom happy, but language is the hill I’ve chosen to die on, so I speak it like it’s the only language I know. When his mom speaks Ewe to me and I don’t understand it, I reply in Fante. Then she would ask in English, “What do you mean?”

We used to have a lovely relationship until this boy came in. I didn’t see anything wrong with my boy knowing how to speak both languages until a few days ago, when I recorded her while she was making a complaint to my husband.

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I had spoken Fante, and she was mad about it. She turned to my husband and started rattling angrily and was visibly shaking. I took my phone and recorded them. The interpretation I got from a friend was that the woman said Fantes are matrilineal, so if my husband doesn’t put his foot down, I will steal the child away from them. And my husband responded that she shouldn’t worry because he won’t allow that to happen.

What the woman said didn’t worry me, but what my husband said did. I asked him what he meant by that statement, and he said he never said it. It’s me who is interpreting what he said wrongly. I don’t want to reveal how I got it to him yet, but I’m scared, confused, and worried. I don’t know if they still love me or if they’ve ever loved me. Is it possible to love someone and hate the language they speak?

Two things I have in mind now: either I won’t give birth again until things change, or I’ll leave the marriage if my husband doesn’t do anything about it. It’s no longer about the language. Tribal politics is at play here, and I’m scared.

—Adez

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