| Urhobo | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Nigeria |
| Region | Delta and Bayelsa State |
| Ethnicity | Urhobo people |
Native speakers | (2,000,000 cited 1993)[1] |
Niger–Congo
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | urh |
| Glottolog | urho1239 |
Urhobo is a South-Western Edoid language[2] spoken by the Urhobo people of southern Nigeria.
Phonology
Urhobo has a rather reduced system of sound inventory compared to proto-Edoid. The inventory of Urhobo consists of seven vowels; which form two harmonic sets,[3] /i e a o u/ and /i ɛ a ɔ u/.[4]
It has a conservative consonant inventory for an Edoid language. It maintains three nasals, and only five oral consonants, /ɺ, l, ʋ, j, w/, have nasal allophones before nasal vowels.
| Labial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Plosive | p b | t d | c ɟ | k ɡ | k͡p ɡ͡b | ||
| Fricative | ɸ | f v | s z | ɕ ʑ | ɣ | h | |
| Trill | r̝ | ||||||
| Flap | ɺ [ɾ̃] | ||||||
| Approximant | ʋ [ʋ̃] | l [n] | j [ɲ] | w [ŋʷ] |
Dictionaries
Urhobo dictionaries have been compiled by Ukere, Osubele, Ebireri Okrokoto of Urhobo Language Institute,[5] and Julius Arerierian.. A wordlist of Nouns and verbs of Okpe, Urhobo and Uvwie was compiled by Akpobọmẹ Diffrẹ-Odiete with funding from Foundation for Endangered Languages.
Syntax
Urhobo has the SVO constituent order type as illustrated with the example below:
Òtítí ò chó ọhọ ná Otiti 3SG steal.PST hen DET ‘Otiti stole the hen.’
References
- ^ Urhobo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ^ Elugbe, B. O. 1989. Edoid: Phonology and Lexicon. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press
- ^ Rolle, N. 2013. “Phonetics and phonology of Urhobo.”UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report, 2013: 281-326.
- ^ Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff
- ^ "Urhobo to English Dictionary" (PDF). urhobolanguageinstitute.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
Sources
- Ukere, Anthony Obakpọnọvwẹ. Urhobo-English dictionary.
- Frank Kügler, Caroline Féry, Ruben Van De Vijver (2009) Variation and Gradience in Phonetics and Phonology
- Okrokoto Ebireri. Ukoko re Ephere R'Urhobo