Ikwerre language
| Ikwerre | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [ìkʷéré] |
| Region | Nigeria |
| Ethnicity | Ikwerre people |
|
Native speakers
|
(200,000 cited 1973) |
|
Niger–Congo
|
|
| Dialects | Ndele, Ọgbakiri, Ọbịọ, Alụụ, Ịbaa, Elele |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | ikwe1242 |
Ikwerre, also spelt as Ikwere, is a language spoken primarily by the Ikwerre people who inhabit Rivers State, Nigeria.
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.
Ikwerre distinguishes vowels by quality (frontedness and height), the presence or absence of nasalization, and the presence or absence of advanced tongue root.
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.
Ikwerre exhibits two kinds of vowel harmony:
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.
...
Wikipedia