'Abroad' and semantically related terms in some European languages and in Akan (Ghana)

The reference of the English word abroad used as a predicate or as an adverbial adjunct can be determined in one of two ways. Depending on contextual evidence, a token of abroad in a discourse must be processed either as an anaphor with the meaning ‘away from the subject referent’s country’ or as a deictic word with the meaning ‘away from the speaker’s/writer’s country’. Certain Akan nouns may be roughly translated as ‘abroad’. Among them the compound noun aburokyiri, with the original meaning ‘white man’s homeland’, is of particular interest. The reference of aburokyiri is never determined by the reference of the subject of its clause, it is always determined relative to the homeland of the speaker, and the fact that it is only used about those parts of the world that are dominated by the white man reflects its original meaning. A different, less frequently used word in Akan, amannfne, may be used to represent a place which is not native to the subject referent, like English abroad.