The Gbe languages (pronounced )The is a voiced labial–velar stop, common in many West African 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 (10.3 million speakers in Ghana and Togo), followed by Fon (5 million, mainly in Benin). 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 (Mina), 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 (Surinamese Creole).
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 (1988) gives a modest estimate of four million, while SIL's Ethnologue (15th edition, 2005) gives eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe languages are Ewe (Ghana and Togo) and Fon (Benin, eastern Togo) 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 (740,000 speakers) and Fon were two of the six national languages selected by the government for adult education in 1992.
Classification Greenberg, following Westermann (1952), placed the Gbe languages in the Kwa family of the Niger–Congo languages.Greenberg (1966), The Languages of Africa. 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 (1988) 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:Sources: for the classification, Capo (1991) & Aboh (2004); for speaker numbers, Ethnologue, 15th edition.
NameAlternate namesSpeakersSome dialectsRegion EweVhe, Ɛ̀ʋɛ̀ gbèca. 3,600,000Anlo-(Keta area)Along the coast, Ewedome, (Ho area) Hill country, Tongu (Sogakope area) along the Volta Riverlower half of Ghana east of the Volta River; southwest TogoGenGẽ, Mina, Gɛn gbeca. 400,000Gliji, Anexo, AgoiLake Togo, around AnexoAjaAja gbe, Adjaca. 500,000 Dogbo, SikpiTogo, Benin area, inland along the Mono RiverFonFɔn gbèca. 1,700,000Gun, Kpase, Agbome, Maxisoutheast Togo, Benin west of the Weme River and along the coastPhla–PheráFla, Offra, Xwla gbeca. 400,000Alada, Toli, AyizoTogo and Benin along the coast and around Lake Ahémé
Kluge (2011) proposes that the Gbe languages consist of a dialect continuum that can be split into three large clusters.
Western Gbe varieties (Ewe, Gen, and Northwestern Gbe): Adan, Agoi/Gliji, Agu, Anexo, Aveno, Awlan, Be, Gbin, Gen, Kpelen, Kpési, Togo, Vhlin, Vo, Waci, Wance, Wundi (also Awuna?) Central Gbe varieties: Aja (Dogbo, Hwe, Sikpi, Tado, Tala) Eastern Gbe varieties (Fon, Eastern Phla–Pherá, and Western Phla–Pherá): Agbome, Ajra, Alada, Arohun, Ayizo, Ci, Daxe, Fon, Gbekon, Gbesi, Gbokpa, Gun, Kotafon, Kpase, Maxi, Movolo, Saxwe, Se, Seto, Tofin, Toli, Weme, Xwela, Xwla (Eastern), Xwla (Western) (also Wudu?)
Naming The dialect continuum as a whole was called 'Ewe' by Westermann, the most influential researcher on the cluster, who used the term 'Standard Ewe' to refer to the written form of the language. Other linguists have called the Gbe languages as a whole 'Aja', after the name of the local language of the Aja-Tado area in Benin. However, use of this single language's name for the language cluster as a whole was not only not acceptable to all speakers but also rather confusing. Since the establishment of a working group at the West African Languages Congress at Cotonou in 1980, H. B. Capo's name suggestion has been generally accepted: Gbe, which is the word for 'language/dialect' in each of the languages.In daily use, individual Gbe languages are referred to by their speakers as X-gbe, e.g. Ewegbe for Ewe, Fongbe for Fon, etc.
History
Before 1600 Ketu, settlement in present-day Benin Republic (formerly known as Dahomey), might be an appropriate starting point for a brief history of the Gbe-speaking peoples. Ewe traditions refer to Ketu as Amedzofe ("origin of humanity") or Mawufe ("home of the Supreme Being"). 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 (also Stado or Stádó) on the Mono river (in present-day Togo). 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 (or Notsé, Notsye, Wancé) kingdom was established by emigrants from the Tado kingdom; Notsie would later (around 1500) become the home of another group of migrants from Tado, the Ewe people. Around 1550, emigrants from Tado established the Allada (or Alada) kingdom, which became the center of the Fon people. Tado is also the origin of the Aja people; in fact, the name Aja-Tado (Adja-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(formerly known as Azame).
Other peoples that speak Gbe languages today are the Gen people (Mina, Ge) 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.Capo 1991:10; see also the section on linguistic diversity in Phla–Pherá languages.
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 (roughly 1500 to 1650). 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 '(piece of) 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.This catechism was reprinted in Labouret & Rivet 1929, who also document the history of the Spanish mission in Allada or Arda.
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 (notably the Caribbean). The main actors in this process were Dutch (and to a lesser extent English) 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 (sometimes deliberately provoked by European powers in order to divide and rule) 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 (Bremen) 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 (at that time called the Ewé Language-Field) were already distinguished by Schlegel, notes Robert Needham Cust in his Modern Languages of Africa (1883).Cust, The Modern Languages of Africa, p. 204. 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 (once as 'the dialect of the province of Dahomé' and once as 'Fogbe').
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 (Die Volta-Sprachen-Gruppe, 1888), Ernst Henrici (Lehrbuch der Ephe-Sprache, 1891, actually the first comparative Gbe grammar), J. Knüsli (Ewe-German-English Vocabulary, 1892) and Maurice Delafosse (Manuel Dahoméen (Fon), 1894).