Ibibio language

Ibibio is the native language of the Ibibio people of Nigeria, belonging to the Ibibio-Efik dialect cluster of the Cross River languages. The name Ibibio is sometimes used for the entire dialect cluster. In pre-colonial times, it was written with Nsibidi ideograms, similar to Igbo, Efik, Anaang, and Ejagham. Ibibio has also had influences on Afro-American diasporic languages such as AAVE words like buckra which come from the Ibibio word mbakara and in the Afro-Cuban tradition of abakua.

Ibibio
Usem Ibibio
Native toNigeria
RegionAbia State, Akwa Ibom State, Rivers State, Cross River State
EthnicityIbibio
Native speakers
L1: 6.3 million (2020)[1]
L2: 4.5 million (2013)[1]
Niger–Congo?
Latin
Nsibidi
Language codes
ISO 639-3ibb
Glottologibib1240

Geographic distribution

Ibibio is the language of the Ibibio people. The Ibibio people are found in Southsouth Nigeria in Akwa Ibom State, Cross River State, and Eastern Abia State (Arochukwu and Ukwa East LGA's). Ibibio communities in Opobo Nkoro and Oyigbo LGA's of Rivers State are largely unknown.

Some Ibibio are found in other countries (Western Cameroon, Bioko and Ghana).

Phonology

Consonants
Ibibio consonant phonemes[2]
Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Labial-velar
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive voiceless b t k k͡p
voiced d
Fricative voiceless f s
Approximant j w

Intervocalic plosives are lenited:[2]

  • /b/ → [β]
  • /t, d/ → [ɾ]
  • /k/ → [ɢ̆] or [ɰ]

Vowels
Ranges for Ibibio monophthongs, from Urua (2004:106)
Ibibio vowel phonemes[2]
Front Back
unrounded unrounded rounded
Close i u
Mid e ʌ o
Open a ɔ
  • /i, u/ are phonetically near-close [ɪ, ʊ].[2]
  • /e, ʌ, o/ are phonetically true-mid; /ʌ/ is also strongly centralized: [e̞, ʌ̝̈, o̞].[2]
  • /a, ɔ/ are phonetically near-open; /a/ is central rather than front: [ɐ, ɔ̞].[2]

Between consonants, /i, u, o/ have allophones that are transcribed [ɪ, ʉ, ə], respectively.[2] At least in case of [ɪ, ə], the realization is probably somewhat different (e.g. close-mid [e, ɘ]), because the default IPA values of the symbols [ɪ, ə] are very similar to the normal realizations of the Ibibio vowels /i, ʌ/. Similarly, [ʉ] may actually be near-close [ʉ̞], rather than close [ʉ].

In some dialects (e.g. Ibiono), /ɪ, ʉ, ə/ occur as phonemes distinct from /i, u, o/.[2]

Tones

Ibibio has five tones: high, mid, rising, falling and low. A word can mean two or more different things based on the tone ascribed to it.

Orthography
Ibibio alphabet
Essien 1983[4]Essien 1990[5]IPA
aaa
bbb
ddd
eee
ǝǝə
fff
ghghɣ
hhx
iii
ịịɨ
kkk
kpkpkp
mmm
nnn
ñn̄ŋ
ñwn̄wŋʷ
nynyɲ
ooo
ọọɔ
ʌʌʌ
ppp
sss
ttt
uuu
ụụʉ
www
yyj

References
  1. Ibibio at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. Urua (2004), p. 106.
  3. Urua (2004), pp. 105–106.
  4. Urua, Eno-Abasi; Gibbon, Dafydd. Orthography, globalisation and IT: A proposal for Ibibio text technology (PDF) (Report). p. 12., citing Essien, O. E., ed. (1983). The Orthography of the Ibibio Language. A publication of the Ibibio Language Panel. Calabar: Paico Press & Books. pp. 7–8. OCLC 16152696.
  5. Essien, Okon E. (1990). "0.3.6". A Grammar of the Ibibio Language. Ibadan: University Press. ISBN 978-978-2491-53-4. OCLC 24681999.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Bibliography

Further reading
  • Bachmann, Arne (2006). Ein quantitatives Tonmodell für Ibibio. Entwicklung eines Prädiktionsmoduls für das BOSS-Sprachsynthesesystem [A quantitative tone model for Ibibio. Development of a prediction module for the BOSS speech synthesis system] (MA thesis) (in German). University of Bonn. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7307214.
  • Kaufman, Elaine Marlowe (1972). Ibibio dictionary. Leiden: Cross River State University and Ibibio Language Board, Nigeria, in cooperation with African Studies Centre. ISBN 978-90-70110-46-8.
Ibibio language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator


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