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Phla-Phera languages

African Language Families

The Phla-Phera languages, also called Xwla-Xwela, are a group of about ten closely related Gbe language varieties spoken mainly in southeastern and southwestern Benin, with some communities in southeastern Togo and southwestern Nigeria. The group was introduced by H. B. Capo in his 1988 classification of the Gbe languages as one of five main branches, and was later divided into eastern and western clusters based on research carried out by SIL International in the 1990s. Phla-Phera is one of the smaller Gbe branches by number of speakers but is considered its most linguistically diverse branch, reflecting both its geographically separated communities and considerable historical influence from neighboring non-Gbe languages.

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