Talk:Kwa languages

Ghana Togo mountain languages
I'm going to remove the Ghana Togo mountain languages from the subdivisions of Kwa in the taxonomy box, because the GTMLs are part of Nyo. If we put them back, then (1) they should be indented under Nyo, and (2) we should list all the second-layer groups, and not artificially favor the GTMLs. ACW 03:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I see. The problem is that the GTM languages aren't really classified as 'part of Nyo' except by the Ethnologue, and Ethnologue does it for unclear reasons. I really don't think we should simply duplicate Ethnologue's classification here, especially since the internal classification of Kwa is notoriously unclear. Stewart (1989, 2000 as cited in Williamson & Blench 2000:29) distinguishes the following major branches of Kwa:
 * Potou-Tano (including e.g. Akan)
 * Ga-Dangme
 * Na-Togo (half of the GTM languages, based on Heine 1968)
 * Ka-Togo (the other half of the GTM languages, based on Heine 1968)
 * Gbe (based on Capo 1991, Stewart's own work)
 * The Ethnologue seems to collapse a few of these into 'Left Bank' and the rest into 'Nyo', but that really is mostly a geographical grouping for which no comparative evidence whatsoever has been offered. As Blench (2006) points out, the GTM languages have traditionally been classified as Kwa languages at least since Westermann, but no-one has really provided evidence for their exact place within Kwa. As long as this position isn't really clear, I thought it best to just provide a link to the GTM languages as a whole (a grouping which admittedly, as Blench puts it, 'bears features of a typological classification'). &mdash; mark &#9998; 08:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree however that the inclusion of Left Bank and Nyo in the infobox rendered the addition of GTM on its own superfluous. I have revised the part of the article dealing with classification and have adjusted the infobox accordingly. &mdash; mark &#9998; 08:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Tonal
The fact that they are tonal should not fail to be mentioned in the article! Badagnani 08:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

How Many People?
The article is missing the information how many people the Kwa languages speak. In other articles on languages this information is present, so it could be present here as well. --Alfe (talk) 15:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)