The Phla–Pherá (Xwla–Xwela) languages form a possible group of Gbe languages spoken mainly in southeastern and southwestern Benin; some communities are found in southeastern Togo and southwestern Nigeria. The group, comprising about ten varieties, was introduced by H.B. Capo in his 1988 classification of Gbe languages as one of the five main branches of Gbe. Additional research carried out by SIL International in the nineties corroborated many of Capo's findings and led to adjustment of some of his more tentative groupings; in particular, Phla–Pherá was divided in an eastern and a western cluster. Phla–Pherá is one of the smaller Gbe branches in terms of number of speakers. It is also the most linguistically diverse branch of Gbe, due partly to the existence of several geographically separated communities, but mainly because of considerable influence by several non-Gbe languages in the past. Some of the Phla–Pherá peoples are thought to be the original inhabitants of the region having intermingled with Gbe immigrants. The term Phla–Pherá is a conjunction of the names of two major dialects of this grouping. There exist many spelling variants of both names (Xwla (Phla) and Xwela (Phera)). Geography and demography Most Phla–Pherá languages are spoken in the Mono, Atlantique, and Oueme (Weme) provinces of Benin. Alada, a lect that is sometimes included in the Phla–Pherá group, is spoken in southwestern Nigeria just southeast of Benin's administrative capital Porto-Novo. One Phla–Pherá language, Xwla (pronounced ), is spoken west of the Mono river, along the coast between Anexo (Togo) and Grand Popo (Benin); this language has been called Popo in the past. Fon in its various shapes, representing another branch of Gbe, is the dominant language in this area and communities of Phla–Pherá speakers are scattered across the Fon area. The Phla–Pherá languages are among the least investigated of the Gbe languages. In some cases, barely more is known than the name of a dialect and the village where it is spoken. Because of this, it is difficult to determine the total number of speakers of Phla–Pherá languages. A tentative approximation, based on the scanty demographic data available in the Ethnologue, is 400 000 speakers excluding Alada, or 600 000 to 700 000 including Alada. Capo's initial classification Much of the comparative research for Hounkpati B.C. Capo's influential classification of the Gbe languages was carried out in the seventies, and partial results trickled down in the late seventies and early