Ikwerre language

Ikwerre
Pronunciation	[ìkʷéré]
Native to	Igbo
Region	Ikwerre, Rivers State
Ethnicity	Ikwerre/Igbo
Native speakers	(200,000 cited 1973)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Igboid Ikwerre; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Apara, Ndele, Ọgbakiri, Ọbịọ, Akpor Alụụ, Ịbaa, Elele[2]
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ikw
Glottolog	ikwe1242[3]

Ikwerre, also spelt as Ikwere, is a language spoken primarily by the Ikwerre people who inhabit Rivers State, Nigeria.

Classification

The Ikwerre language is classified as an Igbo dialect. The classification of Ikwerre as an Igbo dialect however is a subject of controversy among some in the Ikwerre community due to political reasons. Based on lexicostatistical analysis, Kay Williamson originally asserted that the Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Ogba, Etche and Igbo languages belonged to the same language cluster, but were not dialects.[4] Subsequent studies by both Williamson and Roger Blench concluded that Igbo, Ikwerre, Ogba and their sister languages apart from Ekpeye form a "language cluster" and that they are somewhat mutually intelligible.[5] There are indications that the Ikwerre society was bilingual even in the pre-colonial Nigeria, with people speaking other Igbo dialects and Ikwerre.[6]

Phonology

Vowels

Ikwerre distinguishes vowels by quality (frontedness and height), the presence or absence of nasalization, and the presence or absence of advanced tongue root.

		Front	Back
High	+ATR	i ĩ	u ũ
High	−ATR	ɪ ɪ̃	ʊ ʊ̃
Mid	+ATR	e ẽ	o õ
Mid	−ATR	ɛ ɛ̃	ɔ ɔ̃
Low	−ATR	a ã

There is also a vowel */ə̃/ which is posited to explain syllabic nasal consonants in accounts of the language which state that Ikwerre has no nasal stops. This sound is realized as [ɨ̃] or a syllabic nasal which is homorganic to the following consonant.

Vowel harmony

Ikwerre exhibits two kinds of vowel harmony:

Every vowel in an Ikwerre word, with a few exceptions, agrees with the other vowels in the word as to the presence or absence of advanced tongue root.
Vowels of the same height in adjacent syllables must all be either front or back, i.e. the pairs /i/ & /u/, /ɪ/ & /ʊ/, /e/ & /o/, and /ɛ/ & /ɔ/ cannot occur in adjacent syllables. Vowels of different heights, however, need not match for frontness/backness either. This doesn't apply to the first vowel in nouns beginning with a vowel or with /ɾ/, and doesn't apply to onomatopoeic words.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar or palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar or palatal	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Plosive or affricate	Voiceless	p		t	tʃ	k	kʷ
Plosive or affricate	Voiced	b		d	dʒ	ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricative	Voiceless		f	s
Fricative	Voiced		v	z
Non-plosive stop	Voiced	ḅ~m
Non-plosive stop	Glottalized	ʼḅ~ʼm
Tap				ɾ~ɾ̃
Approximant				l~n	j~j̃	ɰ~ɰ̃	w~w̃	h~h̃	hʷ~h̃ʷ

The oral consonants [ḅ ʼḅ l ɾ j ɰ w h hʷ] occur before oral vowels, and their nasal allophones [m ʼm n ɾ̃ ȷ̃ ɰ̃ w̃ h̃ h̃ʷ] before nasal vowels. The "non-explosive stops" [ḅ ʼḅ] are not plosives (not pulmonic), and are equivalent to implosives in other varieties of Igbo.

The tap /ɾ/ may sometimes be realized as an approximant [ɹ].

Tone

Ikwerre is a tonal language.

Agbirigba

Ikwerre has an in-group variant, or cant, Agbirigba, that is meant to prevent understanding by outsiders.

gollark: Time machines? Space machines? Spacetime machines?

gollark: Anomalies? Abstract concepts? Aardvarks?

gollark: Exciting! What do you have to sell? Smaller obelisks? Monoliths? Pocket universes? Hypercomputers?

gollark: There will be MORE auctioforms?

gollark: Brute force?

References

Ikwerre at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Alagoa, Ebiegberi Joe; Anozie, F. N.; Nzewunwa, Nwanna (1988). The early history of the Niger Delta. Buske Verlag. p. 81. ISBN 3-87118-848-4.
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ikwere". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Williamson, Kay (1974). ODUMA: The Lower Niger Languages. 1. Rivers State Council of Arts & Culture, Port Harcourt.
Williamson, Kay; Roger M. Blench (2000). African languages: an introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Kelechukwu U. Ihemere (2007). A Tri-Generational Study of Language Choice & Shift in Port Harcourt. Universal-Publishers. pp. 28–35. ISBN 9781581129588.

Clements, George N.; Osu, Sylvester (2005). "Nasal harmony in Ikwere, a language with no phonemic nasal consonants". Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. 26: 165–200. doi:10.1515/jall.2005.26.2.165.
Williamson, Kay (1970). Reading and writing Ikwerre. Ibadan: Institute of African Studies.

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[e18-1] Ikwerre at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] Alagoa, Ebiegberi Joe; Anozie, F. N.; Nzewunwa, Nwanna (1988). The early history of the Niger Delta. Buske Verlag. p. 81. ISBN 3-87118-848-4.

[Glottolog-3] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ikwere". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[4] Williamson, Kay (1974). ODUMA: The Lower Niger Languages. 1. Rivers State Council of Arts & Culture, Port Harcourt.

[5] Williamson, Kay; Roger M. Blench (2000). African languages: an introduction. Cambridge University Press.

[ihemere-6] Kelechukwu U. Ihemere (2007). A Tri-Generational Study of Language Choice & Shift in Port Harcourt. Universal-Publishers. pp. 28–35. ISBN 9781581129588.