Until the 1980s, the name Ewe was used to designate this language complex. However, this designation did not reflect the variation across the Gbe family and was not acceptable to the speakers of the other varieties outside Ghana (e.g., the Eastern Gbe varieties). Other names such as Tadoid (after Tado, the ancestral home—see map) and Mono (after river Mono—see map) were suggested later by Alan Duthie.³Duthie, Alan S. 1990. “New Kwa interest group at the (19th) West African Languages Congress”. LABO GBE Bulletin 1.2:18-19 F. de Mederios ed. 1984 Peuples du Golfe du Bénin. Paris: Karthala

The basic unity—cultural, political, historical and linguistic—of the Gbe language and the people is undisputed. Yet the question still arises as to whether Gbe is one language or a group of languages. The main criterion that linguists use to decide whether the speech of two or more different communities form one language is based on mutual intelligibility. That is, do the speakers from the different communities understand each other when they speak their respective dialects? While this is a useful test, it is not without its problems. Although there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between geographically contiguous lects in the Gbe language cluster, the lects that are separated by geographical distance are not mutually intelligible. Thus, while there is mutual intelligibility between Ewe and Gen, between Gen and Aja, between Aja and Fon, and between Fon and Xwela, and some amount of intelligibility exists between Ewe and Aja, there is virtually no mutual intelligibility between Ewe and Fon. 

The Gbe speech forms can therefore be grouped together in terms of what is called chain intelligibility. What is clear is that if a speaker of one of these dialects resides in an area of another dialect division, whether they are geographically close or not, the person is able to grasp that dialect within a very short time. For instance, Capo reported that the Fon and Gen speakers who travel to Accra in Ghana acquire Ewe in less than two weeks just as Aja and Fon speakers pick up Gen quickly when they go to Lome in Togo. 

There is reason to believe that, historically, when Gbe people met elsewhere, the differences in the dialect clusters did not pose much of a problem for communication. For instance, Mariza de Carvalho Soares, in a book chapter entitled ‘The Mina people in Rio de Janeiro,’ shows that Francisco Alves de Souza, a Gbe speaker in Rio de Janeiro in the mid-18th century, was able to communicate with other Gbe speakers.⁴De Carvalho Soares, Mariza. 2004. ‘From Gbe to Yoruba: Ethnic change and the Mina nation in Rio de Janeiro.’ In de Carvalho Soares, Mariza, Matt D. Childs, and Toyin Falola (eds.), The Yoruba diaspora in the Atlantic world. 231-247. Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press When he arrived in Brazil, he found the Congregation or Corporation of Black Mina from the Slave Coast who were called “Mina” or “Black Mina,” and they had in common the “língua geral da Mina,” which has been shown to be a Gbe language. The historical evidence from the Atlantic World thus reinforces the chain intelligibility of the Gbe language cluster. 

The linguistic context of Gbe is important for interpreting Damma’s letter. While the Gbe languages share significant aspects of their vocabulary, their grammar can show striking differences. These (dis)similarities can make it difficult for the non-expert to identify the exact Gbe lect that Damma spoke. The current multidisciplinary team was able to reconstruct significant parts of the letter showing that some constructions are akin to Eastern Gbe varieties, while others are more in line with Western Gbe varieties. This is to be expected since Damma’s community, like Francisco de Alves de Souza’s, would have comprised speakers of different Gbe lects, and it is normal for varieties in contact to mix words and structures. The findings do raise the question of how much these languages have changed since the time that the letter was written.