Editing Gbe languages (section)

===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).<ref>Cust, ''The Modern Languages of Africa'', p. 204.</ref> 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).

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 language|Ewe]] (though he often used the term 'Ewe' to denote the Gbe dialect continuum as a whole). Among his most important works on Ewe are his ''A Study of the Ewe language'' (1930) and ''Wörterbuch der Ewe-Sprache'' (1954).