| Ekoi | |
|---|---|
| Ejagham | |
| Native to | Nigeria, Cameroon |
| Ethnicity | Ekoi people |
| Native speakers | 120,000 (2000) |
| Language family | Niger–Congo? |
| Dialects |
|
| Writing system | Nsibidi Latin script |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | etu |
| Glottolog | ejag1239 |
The Jagham language, Ejagham, also known as Ekoi, is an Ekoid language of Nigeria and Cameroon spoken by the Ekoi people. The E- in Ejagham represents the class prefix for "language", analogous to the Bantu ki- in KiSwahili
The Ekoi are one of several peoples who use Nsibidi ideographs, and may be the ones that created them.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Labio- velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | k͡p |
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ɡ͡b | |
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | |||
| voiced | (β) | (ɣ) | ||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||
- Stop sounds /b, ɡ/ are lenited to fricatives when in intervocalic positions.
- Velar sounds can be heard as uvular when in syllable-final position.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ʉ | u |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
- Occurs as unrounded /ɨ/ in the eastern Ejagham dialect. Does not occur in the southern dialect.
- ^ Only occurs in the southern Ejagham dialect.
Writing System
A Jagham alphabet was developed by John R. Watters and Kathie Watters in 1981.
| a | b | bh | ch | d | e | ə | f | g | gb | gh | i | j | k | kp | m | n | ny | ŋ | o | p | r | s | t | u | ʉ | w | y |
Dialects
Ekoi is dialectally diverse. The dialects of Ejagham are divided into Western and Eastern groups:
- Western varieties include Bendeghe, Northern and Southern Etung, Ekwe and Akamkpa-Ejagham;
- Eastern varieties include Keaka and Obang.
Blench (2019) also lists Ekin as an Ejagham dialect.
Morphology
Ekoi has the following noun classes, listed here with their Bantu equivalents. Watters (1981) says there are fewer than in Bantu because of mergers (class 4 into 3, 7 into 6, etc.), though Blench notes that there is no reason to think that the common ancestral language had as many noun classes as proto-Bantu.
| Noun class | Prefix | Concord |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | N- | w, ɲ |
| 2 | a- | b |
| 3 | N- | m |
| 5 | ɛ- | j |
| 6 | a- | m |
| 8 | bi- | b |
| 9 | N- | j, ɲ |
| 14 | ɔ- | b |
| 19 | i- | f |
('N' stands for a homorganic nasal. 'j' is "y".)
References
- Ekoi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Watters, John R. (1981). A Phonology and Morphology of Ejagham- with notes on Dialect Variation. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles.
- Tadadjeu 1993, p. 73.
- Blench, Roger. "Ekoid: Bantoid languages of the Nigeria-Cameroun borderland" (PDF). p. 1.
- Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
Works cited
- Tadadjeu, Maurice (1993). "Cameroun". In Rhonda L. Hartell (ed.). Alphabets des langues africaines. Dakar: Unesco et Société internationale de linguistique.
External links
| Ekoid languages | |
|---|---|
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