The name of a people and of their Akan (Bia) language, also called Nzima or Appolo, spoken in south-western Ghana and south-eastern Côte d'Ivoire. Valsecchi shows that 'Nzema' has historically named several related social, political and territorial units, and reads it as a layered identity rather than a fixed ethnic category.
The collection includes proverbs recorded in Nzema.