Gbe languages
The Gbe languages form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe, followed by Fon. The Gbe languages were traditionally placed in the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo languages, but more recently have been classified as Volta–Niger languages. They include five major dialect clusters: Ewe, Fon, Aja, Gen, and Phla–Pherá.
Most of the Gbe peoples came from the east to their present dwelling-places in several migrations between the tenth and the fifteenth century. Some of the Phla–Pherá peoples however are thought to be the original inhabitants of the area who have intermingled with the Gbe immigrants, and the Gen people probably originate from the Ga-Adangbe people in Ghana. In the late eighteenth century, many speakers of Gbe were enslaved and transported to the New World: it is believed that Gbe languages played some role in the genesis of several Caribbean creole languages, especially Haitian Creole and Sranantongo.
Around 1840, German missionaries started linguistic research into the Gbe languages. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Africanist Diedrich Hermann Westermann was one of the most prolific contributors to the study of Gbe. The first internal classification of the Gbe languages was published in 1988 by H.B. Capo, followed by a comparative phonology in 1991. The Gbe languages are tonal, isolating languages and the basic word order is subject–verb–object.
Languages
Geography and demography
The Gbe language area is bordered to the west and east by the Volta River in Ghana and the Weme River in Benin. The northern border is between 6 and 8 degrees latitude and the southern border is the Atlantic coast. The area is neighbored mainly by Kwa languages, except for the east and north-east, where Yorùbá is spoken. To the west, Ga–Dangme, Guang and Akan are spoken. To the north, it is bordered by Adele, Aguna, Akpafu, Lolobi, and Yorùbá.Estimates of the total number of speakers of Gbe languages vary considerably. Capo gives a modest estimate of four million, while SIL's Ethnologue gives eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe languages are Ewe and Fon at four million and 3 million speakers, respectively. Ewe is a language of formal education for secondary schools and universities in Ghana, and is also used in non-formal education in Togo. In Benin, Aja and Fon were two of the six national languages selected by the government for adult education in 1992.
Classification
, following Westermann, placed the Gbe languages in the Kwa family of the Niger–Congo languages. The extent of the Kwa branch has fluctuated through the years, and Roger Blench places the Gbe languages in a Volta–Niger branch with former East Kwa languages to their east.Gbe is a dialect continuum. Based on comparative research, Capo divides it into five clusters, with each cluster consisting of several mutually intelligible dialects. The borders between the clusters are not always distinct. The five clusters are:
| Name | Alternate names | Speakers | Some dialects | Region |
| Ewe | Vhe, Ɛ̀ʋɛ̀ gbè | ca. 3,600,000 | Anlo-Along the coast, Ewedome, Hill country, Tongu along the Volta River | lower half of Ghana east of the Volta River; southwest Togo |
| Gen | Gẽ, Mina, Gɛn gbe | ca. 400,000 | Gliji, Anexo, Agoi | Lake Togo, around Anexo |
| Aja | Aja gbe, Adja | ca. 500,000 | Dogbo, Sikpi | Togo, Benin area, inland along the Mono River |
| Fon | Fɔn gbè | ca. 1,700,000 | Gun, Kpase, Agbome, Maxi | southeast Togo, Benin west of the Weme River and along the coast |
| Phla–Pherá | Fla, Offra, Xwla gbe | ca. 400,000 | Alada, Toli, Ayizo | Togo and Benin along the coast and around Lake Ahémé |
Kluge proposes that the Gbe languages consist of a dialect continuum that can be split into three large clusters.
- Western Gbe varieties : Adan, Agoi/Gliji, Agu, Anexo, Aveno, Awlan, Be, Gbin, Gen, Kpelen, Kpési, Togo, Vhlin, Vo, Waci, Wance, Wundi
- Central Gbe varieties: Aja
- Eastern Gbe varieties : Agbome, Ajra, Alada, Arohun, Ayizo, Ci, Daxe, Fon, Gbekon, Gbesi, Gbokpa, Gun, Kotafon, Kpase, Maxi, Movolo, Saxwe, Se, Seto, Tofin, Toli, Weme, Xwela, Xwla, Xwla
Naming
History
Before 1600
, settlement in present-day Benin Republic, might be an appropriate starting point for a brief history of the Gbe-speaking peoples. Ewe traditions refer to Ketu as Amedzofe or Mawufe. It is believed that the inhabitants of Ketu were pressed westward by a series of wars between the tenth and the thirteenth century. In Ketu, the ancestors of the Gbe-speaking peoples separated themselves from other refugees and began to establish their own identity.Attacks between the thirteenth and the fifteenth century drove a large section of the group still further westward. They settled in the ancient kingdom of Tado on the Mono river. The Tado kingdom was an important state in West Africa up to the late fifteenth century.
In the course of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the Notsie kingdom was established by emigrants from the Tado kingdom; Notsie would later become the home of another group of migrants from Tado, the Ewe people. Around 1550, emigrants from Tado established the Allada kingdom, which became the center of the Fon people. Tado is also the origin of the Aja people; in fact, the name Aja-Tado is frequently used to refer to their language.
Aja is considered the mother tribe by the rest of Gbe speaking people as many of the tribes trace their migration routes through Aja Tado.
Other peoples that speak Gbe languages today are the Gen people around Anexo, who are probably of Ga and Fante origin, and the Phla and Pherá peoples, some of whom consist of the traditional inhabitants of the area intermingled with early migrants from Tado.
European traders and the transatlantic slave trade
Little is known of the history of the Gbe languages during the time that only Portuguese, Dutch and Danish traders landed on the Gold Coast. The trade of mostly gold and agricultural goods did not exercise much influence on social and cultural structures of the time. No need was felt to investigate the indigenous languages and cultures; the languages generally used in trade at this time were Portuguese and Dutch. Some loanwords remain from this period, for example atrapoe 'stairs' from Dutch trap and duku ' cloth' from Dutch doek or Danish dug. The few written accounts that stem from this period focus on trade. As more European countries established trade posts in the area, missionaries were sent out. As early as 1658, Spanish missionaries translated the Doctrina Christiana into the language of Allada, making it one of the earliest texts in any West African language. The Gbe language used in this document is thought to be a somewhat mangled form of Gen.The relatively peaceful situation was profoundly changed with the rise of the transatlantic slave trade, which reached its peak in the late eighteenth century when as many as 15,000 slaves per year were exported from the area around Benin as part of a triangular trade between the European mainland, the west coast of Africa and the colonies of the New World. The main actors in this process were Dutch traders; captives were supplied mostly by cooperating coastal African states.
The Bight of Benin, precisely the area where the Gbe languages are spoken, was one of the centers of the slave trade at the turn of the eighteenth century. The export of 5% of the population each year resulted in overall population decline. Moreover, since the majority of the exported captives were male, the slave trade led to an imbalance in the female/male ratio. In some parts of the Slave Coast the ratio reached two adult women for every man. Several wars further distorted social and economical relations in the area. The lack of earlier linguistic data makes it difficult to trace the inevitable linguistic changes that resulted from this turbulent period.
Colonisation and onwards
Around 1850, the transatlantic slave trade had virtually ceased. As the grip of European colonial powers strengthened, slave raiding became prohibited, trading focused on goods once more and the Europeans took it to be their calling to Christianize the colonized parts of Africa. In 1847 the Norddeutsche Missions-Gesellschaft started its work in Keta.In 1857, the first Ewe grammar, Schlüssel der Ewesprache, dargeboten in den Grammatischen Grundzügen des Anlodialekts, was published by missionary J. B. Schlegel of the Bremen mission. Five different dialects of Gbe were already distinguished by Schlegel, notes Robert Needham Cust in his Modern Languages of Africa. The dialects listed by Cust do not map exactly onto the five subgroups now distinguished by Capo, which is not too surprising since Cust himself admits that he relies on a multitude of often conflicting sources. Fon is in fact listed twice.
Where previous literature consisted mostly of travel journals sometimes accompanied by short word lists, Schlegel's work marked the beginning of a period of prolific lexicographic and linguistic research into the various Gbe languages. Important writers of this period include Johann Gottlieb Christaller, Ernst Henrici, J. Knüsli and Maurice Delafosse.
In 1902 the missionary Diedrich Hermann Westermann contributed an article titled "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Yewe-Sprachen in Togo" to Zeitschrift für Afrikanische und Oceanische Sprachen. Westermann became one of the most productive and influential writers on the Gbe languages, and his output dominated the Gbe literature and analysis of the first half of the twentieth century. He wrote mainly on the Western Gbe languages, especially on Ewe. Among his most important works on Ewe are his A Study of the Ewe language and Wörterbuch der Ewe-Sprache.