The GILLBT/SIL Gonja dictionary records Gonja names for talking drums: katimpeni ('large talking drum') and kabontokurebi ('small talking drum'). At Damongo, drum chants recounting Gonja history are performed in an archaic form of Gonja that few listeners understand. Esther and Jack Goody (1992) compared written versions of this drum history and showed that they support different readings of Gonja history.
The Gonja drum history chanted at Damongo uses an archaic form of the language.