Identity through idioms in Adzagbe , a Ghana-Togo border youth language

The youth on the Ghana-Togo border town of Aflao have developed a vibrant linguistic code known as Adzagbe ‘rogue/hooligan language’, a stylised Ewe-based sociolect that reflects their lived realities, cultural creativity, and social positioning. Adzagbe vocabulary especially its idiomatic expressions are products of creativity and innovation, and also spectacles into the Adzagbe identity. This study explores Adzagbe idiomatic expressions, examining how they function as tools for identity construction, thematic innovation, and linguistic hybridity. Drawing on the Adzagbe Lexicon, an online dictionary of the code, complemented by informal interviews and focus group discussions with Adzagbe speakers, the analysis reveals idioms that span themes of survival tactics, sex, everyday life, substance use, and interpersonal relations. The study further highlights Adzagbe’s multilingual repertoire, where Ewe idioms blend with English, French, and Twi to create stylistic opacity and perform border fluency. Positioned within youth language and borderland scholarship, this work highlights Adzagbe idioms as performative acts of belonging, dissent, and linguistic agency, offering new insights into African sociolinguistic innovation in transnational spaces.