Mbembe language

Mbembe
Mbembe
Native to	Nigeria
Native speakers	(100,000 cited 1982)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo languages Benue–Congo languages Cross River Upper Cross Central East–West Mbembe; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mfn – inclusive code; Individual code:; oda – Odut village
Glottolog	cros1244
ELP	Odut

Mbembe is a Cross River language of Nigeria. Odut, a divergent variety spoken in a village far South of the rest of Mbembe, had 20 speakers in 1980 and may be extinct.

Geographic distribution

Mbembe is spoken in the vicinity of Obubra, Cross River State. Neighbouring languages are Yakö, Legbo, and Yigha to the west; and Kele, Kajuk, Nnam, Nselle, Nta, Iyala, and Futop to the north and east. Mbembe is spoken by four clans: Adun, Osopong, Okom, and Ofombonga.^: 11, 12

Phonology

Mbembe has a simple syllable structure, with common patterns being V, CV, CVC, and CVCV. Consonant clusters consist of a nasal preceding a consonant, where the nasal is homorganic.^: 25

Consonants

Mbembe consonants
		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio- velar
Nasal	plain	m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Nasal	fortis	mː		nː
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p		t	t͡ʃ	k	k͡p
	voiced	b		d	d͡ʒ	ɡ	ɡ͡b
	fortis			tː		kː	k͡pː
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	f	s
	voiced	β	v
	fortis		fː	sː
Tap				ɾ
Approximant				l	j		w

Consonants occur in two sets, C₁ and C₂. C₁ appears in the initial of a syllable and encompasses all 30 consonants in Mbembe, while C₂ appears as the second consonant of a syllable and has six consonants.^: 36, 38

Consonant set 2
	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Non-nasal	P	T	K

C₂ consonants P, T, and K display several allophonic realisations. Phrase-finally, they are pronounced as unreleased stops, but when immediately followed by a vowel they are pronounced as [β], [ɾ], and [k], respectively.^: 38 When C₁ is a nasal consonant, C₂ must also be a nasal consonant.^: 40

Vowels

Mbembe has seven distinct vowel qualities.^: 26 Four vowels are distinguished by length.^: 59

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	(ɨ)	u
Near-high	(ɪ)		(ʊ)
High-mid	e eː		o oː
Low-mid	ɛ		ɔ ɔː
Low		a aː

Phoneme/Sound	Allophones	Occurrence
/i/ [i]	[ɨ]	in closed syllables except when following /j/ or palatalized consonants
	[ɪ]	in closed syllables when following /j/ or palatalized consonants
	[i]	elsewhere
/u/ [u]	[u̟]	in closed syllables except when following /w/ or labialized consonants
	[ʊ]	in extended syllable-pieces except when following /w/ or labialized consonants
	[u]	elsewhere

Tone

Tone in Mbembe serve both lexical and grammatical functions. It has two primary towns: high and low.^: 63, 65 Mbembe tones exhibit a phenomenon of "downdrift". When a sequence of high tones are interrupted by a low tone, the following high tones are slightly lower in pitch.^: 66

he-has machetes all

However, lowering may also occur unpredictably without an interrupting low tone:

he-has cutting-grass all

References

↑ Mbembe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Odut village at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
↑ Blench (2013) An Atlas of Nigerian Languages
↑ "Odut". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Barnwell, Katherine Grace Lowry (1969). A Grammatical Description of Mbembe (Adun Dialect)- A cross river language. University College London.

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[e18-1] Mbembe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Odut village at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] Blench (2013) An Atlas of Nigerian Languages

[3] "Odut". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-07-26.

[Barnwell1969-4] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Barnwell, Katherine Grace Lowry (1969). A Grammatical Description of Mbembe (Adun Dialect)- A cross river language. University College London.