Ewe, also written Evhe, or Eʋe, is a major dialect cluster of Gbe or Tadoid (Capo 1991, Duthie 1996) spoken in the southern parts of the Volta Region, in Ghana and across southern Togo,[5] to the Togo-Benin border by about three million people. Ewe belongs to the Gbe family of Niger-Congo. Gbe languages are spoken in an area that extends predominantly from Togo, Benin and as far as Western Nigeria to Lower Weme; that is, from the Greenwich Meridian to 30E and from the Atlantic coast to about 80N.

Ewe dialects vary enormously. Groups of villages that are two or three kilometres apart use distinct varieties. Nevertheless, across the Ewe-speaking area, the dialects may be broadly grouped geographically into coastal or southern dialects, e.g., Aŋlɔ, Tɔŋú Avenor, Watsyi and inland dialects characterised indigenously as Ewedomegbe, e.g., Lomé, Danyi, and Kpele etc. (Agbodeka 1997, Gavua 2000, Ansre 2000). Speakers from different localities understand each other and can identify the peculiarities of the different areas. Additionally, there is a written standard that was developed in the nineteenth century based on the regional variants of the various sub-dialects with a high degree of coastal content. With it, a standard colloquial variety has also emerged (spoken usually with a local accent), and is used very widely in cross-dialectal contact sites such as schools, markets, and churches.

The storytellers use a dialect of Aŋlɔ spoken in Seva. Their language is the spoken form and hence does not necessarily conform to the expectations of someone familiar with the standard dialect. For instance, they use the form yi to introduce relative clauses instead of the standard written si, and yia 'this' instead of the standard written sia. They sometimes also use subject markers on the verb agreeing with the lexical NP subject while this is not written in the standard. A distinctive feature of the Aŋlɔ dialect is that the sounds made in the area of the teeth ridge are palatalised when followed by a high vowel. For instance, the verb tsi 'become old' is pronounced [tsyi] by the storyteller Kwakuga Goka.

Ewe is bordered to the west by the Akan, and to the north by the Dagomba Northern Region and Upper East Region languages, for example, Siwu, Siya, Likpe etc., some Gur languages such as Kabiye. To the east are the Gbe dialects —Gen, Aja and Xwla— all of which have degrees of intelligibility with Ewe (Kluge 2000). Ewe is used as a second language in the Volta Region communities (Ring 1981). It is studied as a subject at all levels of education in Togo up to and including the tertiary level. In Togo, where French has been the official language, Ewe and Kabiye have been declared the two indigenous languages being promoted for official use in education, mass media, etc. Ewe is thus used for radio and TV broadcasting and in some community newspapers in Togo and some south-eastern parts of the Volta Region. In the Togo and Volta Region, Ewe is used in adult literacy programmes leading to an increasing number of publications in the language on topics of health, agriculture, and child rearing, among others (Duthie and Vlaardingerbroek 1981). French is present in the Ewe speaking communities in Togo and Benin respectively. Some speakers are bilingual or multilingual in Ewe, and French or English and/or other languages such as Hausa, Kabiye, Akposo, Yoruba etc. Due to contact with some of these languages, some words are borrowed into Ewe. In the story told by Madam Hodolo Atɔsu, she uses words like kɔnset 'concert' and flawas(i) 'flowers' both borrowed from English.