Akan () is a Central Tano language and the principal native language of the Akan people of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana. About 80% of Ghana's population can speak Akan, and about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers. It is also spoken in parts of Côte d'Ivoire. Four dialects have been developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies: Asante, Akuapem, Bono (collectively known as Twi), and Fante; which, despite being mutually intelligible, were inaccessible in written form to speakers of the other standards until the Akan Orthography Committee (AOC)'s development of a common Akan orthography in 1978, based mainly on Akuapem Twi. This unified orthography is used as the medium of instruction in primary school by speakers of several other Central Tano languages, such as Akyem, Anyi, Sehwi, Fante, Ahanta, and the Guan languages. The Akan Orthography Committee has worked on the creation of a standard orthography. With the Atlantic slave trade, the language was introduced to the Caribbean and South America, notably in Suriname, spoken by the Ndyuka, and in Jamaica, spoken by the Jamaican Maroons, also known as the Coromantee. The cultures of the descendants of escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname and the Maroons in Jamaica still retain influences from this language, including the Akan naming practice of naming children after the day of the week on which they are born, e.g. Akwasi/Kwasi for a boy or Akosua for a girl born on a Sunday. In Jamaica and Suriname, the Anansi spider stories are still well-known. History In history, the Akans who live in Ghana migrated in successive waves between the 11th and 18th centuries. Others inhabit the eastern part of Ivory Coast and parts of Togo. They migrated from the north to occupy the forest and coastal areas in the south in the 13th century. The Akans have a strong oral history tradition of their past and they're also known in the art history world for symbolic artifacts of wood, metal and terracotta. Their cultural ideas are expressed in stories and proverbs and also in designs such as symbols used in carvings and on clothes. The cultural and historic nature of the Akans in Ghana makes it an area of research for various disciplines such as folklore, literary studies, linguistics, anthropology and history. Relationship to other Central Tano languages Akan is a dialect continuum that includes Twi, Fante, and Wasa.