Ikwerre language

Ikwerre
Pronunciation	[ìkʷéré]
Region	Nigeria
Native speakers	200,000  (date missing)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Igboid Ikwerre
Dialects	Ndele, Ọgbakiri, Ọbịọ, Alụụ, Ịbaa, Elele
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ikw

Ikwerre, also spelt as Ikwere, is a language spoken primarily by the Ikwerre people who inhabit Rivers State, Nigeria. According to a 1973 SIL International report, the number of Ikwerre speakers is estimated at 200,000. By taking into consideration the population of the four Ikwerre local governments (Port Harcourt, Emohua, Obia/Akpor and Ikwerre), this figure may extend to a little over a million speakers as per the 2006 National Population Commission census.

Classification

The classification of Ikwerre as an Igbo dialect is a subject of controversy among some in the Ikwerre community. Most publications classify it as an Igboid language. 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. 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. There are indications that the Ikwerre society was bilingual even in the pre-colonial Nigeria, with people speaking other Igbo dialects and Ikwerre.

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
	−ATR	ɪ ɪ̃	ʊ ʊ̃
Mid	+ATR	e ẽ	o õ
	−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:

1. 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.
2. 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
						Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Plosive or affricate	Voiceless	p		t	tʃ	k	kʷ
	Voiced	b		d	dʒ	ɡ	ɡʷ
Fricative	Voiceless		f	s
	Voiced		v	z
Non-plosive stop	Voiced	ḅ~m
	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.

References

• 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. 

External links

• Ethnologue report for language code:ikw