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Irigwe
The Rigwe language, ''Nkarigwe'', is a Plateau language of Nigeria spoken by the Irigwe people mainly found in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State. Rigwe has highly complex phonology.Blench, Roger M. 2018. Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages of Central Nigeria. In John R. Watters (ed.), ''East Benue-Congo: Nouns, pronouns, and verbs'', 107–172. Berlin: Language Science Press. The presence of the lateral fricative /ɫ/ in Rigwe, unusual among Plateau languages, suggests that there used to be West Chadic languages The West Chadic languages of the Afro-Asiatic family are spoken principally in Niger and Nigeria. They include Hausa, the most populous Chadic language and a major language of West Africa. Languages The branches of West Chadic go either by ... in the area with this phoneme.Blench, Roger (2022). Contact between West Chadic and Plateau languages: new evidence languages: new evidence'. 11-12 November 2022, presentation given at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irigwe People
Irigwe people ('' Rigwe:'' Nneirigwe; '' Hausa:'' Miyango) are found mainly in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State, Middle Belt (central) Nigeria. They speak the Rigwe language (also Nkarigwe), a Central Plateau language. Their headquarters is the town of Miango, west of the state capital, Jos. Distribution Irigwe people are found in Bassa, Jos North and Jos South Local Government Areas of Plateau State and in Kauru Local Government Area of southern Kaduna State, Nigeria. Culture Dance On the dance pattern of the Irigwe, young Irigwe farmers usually leap to encourage the growth of crops at festivals related to the agricultural cycle. Other occupational guilds and professional organizations of experts, like blacksmiths, hunters, or wood-carvers, also possess their own expressive dances. Hunters may also possibly mime the movements of animals as a ritual means of controlling wild beasts and allaying their own fears. Marriage Walter H. Sangree wrote: Leadership Tradi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Plateau Languages
The twenty Central Plateau languages are a residual branch of the Plateau family spoken in central Nigeria. Tyap (or Katab) has 130,000 speakers, and the closely related Jju (or Kaje) has well over 300,000. Hyam (or Jabba) has another 100,000. Cori is famous for being one of very few languages with six tone levels, though only three are needed for writing. Classification The Central Plateau languages are a close geographical group with numerous connections; however, they are to some extent a residual group and may be a sprachbund. The following classification is taken from Blench (2008). A distinction between North Plateau and the rest of Central Plateau is possible but appears to be geographic; Gerhardt (1994) argues they belong together. Each of the second-level bullets is a single language or dialect cluster and is obviously valid. However, most of the first-level groups (Hyamic, North Plateau, Gyongic, Koro) are not self-evident and may continue to be revised. * Rigwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bassa, Plateau State
Bassa is a Local Government Area in the north of Plateau State, Nigeria, bordering Kaduna and Bauchi States. Its headquarters are in the town of Bassa at. It has an area of 1,743 km with other small towns like Miango, Mc Alley; originally called Biciza, Jengre, villages such as Binchin, Zukku, Kwal, Saya, Gurum among many others and a population of 186,859 at the 2006 census. Bassa local government houses the Nigerian Army 3 Division, Maxwell Khobe Cantonment as well as a police station and the First bank of Nigeria. The postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ... of the area is 930. Languages Languages spoken in Bassa are Hausa, Irigwe, Amo, Rukuba, Buji– Boze language, Chawe, Jere, Gusu, Kurama, Limoro, Tarya, Sanga, Janji, Duguza and Chokobo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plateau Languages
The forty or so Plateau languages are a tentative group of Benue–Congo languages spoken by 15 million people on the Jos Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa State and in adjacent areas in central Nigeria. Berom and Eggon have the most speakers. Most Plateau languages are threatened and have around 2,000-10,000 speakers.Blench, Roger. 2007. Language families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the historical implications of their distribution'. Presented to the Jos Linguistic Circle in Jos, Nigeria, July 25, 2007. Defining features of the Plateau family have only been published in manuscript form (Blench 2008). Many of the languages have highly elaborate phonology systems that make comparison with poor data difficult. Branches and locations Below is a list of major Plateau branches and their primary locations (centres of diversity) based on Blench (2019). The Plateau languages are highly typologically and lexically diverse. For instance, Roger Blench (2022) notes that Beromic is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plateau State
Plateau State is the twelfth-largest Nigerian state. It is in the centre of the country includes a range of hills surrounding the Jos Plateau, its capital, and the entire plateau itself. Plateau State is described as "The Home of Peace and Tourism". With natural formations of rocks, hills and waterfalls, it derives its name from the Jos Plateau and has a population of around 3.5 million people. Geography Adjacent states * Bauchi State – to the north east * Kaduna State – to the north west * Nasarawa State – to the south west * Taraba State – to the south east Boundaries Plateau State is located in the North Central Zone out of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. With an area of 26,899 square kilometres, the state has an estimated population of about three million people. It is located between latitude 8°24' N and 10°30' N and longitude 8°32' E and 10°38' E. The state is named after the Jos Plateau, a mountainous area in the north of the sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fricative Consonant
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German (the final consonant of ''Bach''); or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh (appearing twice in the name ''Llanelli''). This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition, the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English , , , and are examples of sibilants. The usage of two other terms is less standardized: "Spirant" is an older term for fricatives used by some American and European phoneticians and phonologists. "Strident" could mean just "sibilant", but some authors include also labiodental and uvular fricatives in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affricate Consonant
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and , often spelled ''ch'' and ''j'', respectively. Examples The English sounds spelled "ch" and "j" ( broadly transcribed as and in the IPA), German and Italian ''z'' and Italian ''z'' are typical affricates, and sounds like these are fairly common in the world's languages, as are other affricates with similar sounds, such as those in Polish and Chinese. However, voiced affricates other than are relatively uncommon. For several places of articulation they are not attested at all. Much less common are labiodental affricates, such as in German and Izi, or velar affricates, such as in Tswana (written ''kg'') or in High Alemannic Swiss German dialects. Worldwide, relatively few languages have af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approximant Consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ''rest'') and semivowels like and (as in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in ''less''). Terminology Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term "approximant" in the 1960s, the terms "frictionless continuant" and "semivowel" were used to refer to non-lateral approximants. In phonology, "approximant" is also a distinctive feature that encompasses all sonorants except nasals, including vowels, taps and trills. Semivowels Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms ''semivowel'' and ''glide'' are often used for these non-syllabic vowel-like segme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labial–velar Consonant
Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as . They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant . Labial-velars are often written as digraphs. In the Kâte language, however, is written Q q, and as Ɋ ɋ. Globally, these types of consonants are quite rare, only existing in two regions: West and Central Africa on the one hand, Eastern New Guinea and northern Vanuatu on the other. Labial-velar stops Truly doubly articulated labial-velars include the stops and the nasal . To pronounce them, one must attempt to say the velar consonants but then close their lips for the bilabial component, and then release the lips. While 90% of the occlusion overlaps, the onset of the velar occurs slightly before that of the labial, and the release of the labial occurs slightly after that of the velar so the preceding vowel sounds as if it were followed by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voicelessness
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation. The International Phonetic Alphabet has distinct letters for many voiceless and modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruents), such as . Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness, and , which is used for letters with a descender. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as vowels and sonorant consonants: . In Russian use of the IPA, the voicing diacritic may be turned for voicelessness, e.g. . Voiceless vowels and other sonorants Sonorants are sounds such as vowels and nasals that are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts: *Voicing can refer to the ''articulatory process'' in which the vocal folds vibrate, its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds. *It can also refer to a classification of speech sounds that tend to be associated with vocal cord vibration but may not actually be voiced at the articulatory level. That is the term's primary use in phonology: to describe phonemes; while in phonetics its primary use is to describe phones. For example, voicing accounts for the difference between the pair of sounds associated with the English letters "s" and "z". The two sounds are transcribed as and to distinguish them from the English letters, which have several possible pronunciations, depe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
