Summary of Discussion Sessions

During the Workshop on the GTM languages in Ho, July 2006, the participants expressed the wish to constitute themselves into a Working Group on the GTM (and Guang) Languages.

Here are some points agreed upon:

(i) Exchange of ideas and material via postings on a website. Roger Blench kindly offered to set up the website and invited participants to send him any material that they felt could be made public for posting.

We thank Roger for setting up the site already. There is at least one paper by Mary Esther Dakubu posted there. I urge all to consult the site and send any reactions to Roger directly. The site can be accessed at:

..\Papers\MEKD TransVolta paper.pdf

(i) For the moment the name Ghana-Togo-Mountain Languages will continue to be used. It was also suggested that the languages should be referred to with both the Common name and the autonyms side by side (e.g. Igo (Ahlon) ; Logba (Ikpana) etc. In publications, authors should endeavour to indicate the Ethnologue Code for the language.

(ii) Some topics that were mentioned for research in the various languages are:

a. Tone

b. Placement of events/ Events

c. Nominal classification

d. Tense-aspect-modality

e. Verbal extensions

f. Discourse particles

g. Ethnoscience, i.e. ethnobotanical and ethnozoological terms and taxonomies

(iv) It was agreed that we should find ways and means of organising a similar workshop again, bringing together as many researchers as possible.