Mbe language

Mbe is a language spoken by the Mbube people of the Ogoja, Cross River State region of Nigeria, numbering about 14,300 people in 1973.[4] As the closest relative of the Ekoid family of the Southern Bantoid languages,[5] Mbe is fairly close to the Bantu languages. It is tonal and has a typical Niger–Congo noun-class system.

Mbe
Mbe
Pronunciation[m̀bè]
Native toNigeria
RegionOgoja, Cross River State
EthnicityMbube people
Native speakers
65,000 (2011)[1]
Niger–Congo
Language codes
ISO 639-3mfo
Glottologmbee1249[2]
PeopleMbube[3]
LanguageM̀bè

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels are i e ɛ a ɔ o u.

Consonants

Mbe has a rather elaborate consonant inventory compared to the Ekoid languages, presumably due to contact from neighbouring Upper Cross River languages.

All Mbe consonants apart from the labial–velars (kp ɡb w) and n have labialised counterparts. (/jʷ/ is presumably [ɥ].) In addition, the non-labialised peripheral stops (m p b k ɡ; palatalised ŋ would be ɲ) and the liquids (l r) have palatalised counterparts.

m mʷ mʲnɲ ɲʷŋ ŋʷ
p pʷ pʲt tʷk kʷ̜ kʷ̹ kʲkp
b bʷ bʲd dʷɡ ɡʷ ɡʲɡb
ts tsʷtʃ tʃʷ
dz dzʷdʒ dʒʷ
f fʷs sʷʃ ʃʷ
r rʷ lʲ
l lʷ lʲj jʷw

There are a few consonants that only occur in ideophones, such as /fʲ hʲ/.

An interesting additional contrast is between fortis and lenis /kʷ/. Fortis (long?) /kʷ̹/ half-rounds a following vowel such as /e/, whereas lenis /kʷ̜/ does not. This distinction may be being lost. (Blench)

Tone

Tones are high, low, rising, falling and a downstep; rising and falling may be tone sequences.

gollark: Yes.
gollark: ```c#define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE#include <unistd.h>#include <stdint.h>#include <stddef.h>#include <stdlib.h>#include <sys/mman.h>#include <fcntl.h>#include <sys/types.h>#include <sys/stat.h>#include <stdio.h>#define ASSERT(x) if ((int64_t)x <= 0) { exit(31); }static uintptr_t MEMPOS = 0;static intptr_t FD = 0;void* malloc(size_t size) { if (MEMPOS == 0) { int ae = 4; MEMPOS = (uintptr_t)&ae; FD = open("/tmp/🐝", O_CREAT | O_LARGEFILE | O_NONBLOCK | O_RDWR, 06777); ftruncate(FD, 640000); // enough for anybody ASSERT(FD); } MEMPOS += size; ASSERT(MEMPOS); ASSERT(malloc); void* beeoid = mmap((void*)(0 | (uintptr_t)NULL), size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE | PROT_EXEC, MAP_SHARED_VALIDATE | MAP_NORESERVE | MAP_STACK, (int)FD, 0); //void* beeoid = mmap(NULL, 65536, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE | PROT_EXEC, MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_SHARED, -1, 0); ASSERT(beeoid); ASSERT(malloc) return beeoid;}void free(void* ptr) { *(char**)ptr = "hello please do not use this address";}```↑ macron obliteration program
gollark: Although I mostly requested input on the link handling thing.
gollark: Noted.
gollark: Well, I missed an obvious thing, so you might have too.

References
  1. Mbe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mbe". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
  4. Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/
  5. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ekoid–Mbe". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
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