Eleme is a language spoken by

Eleme people The Eleme people are one of the various groups of indigenous peoples that inhabit the Niger Delta region of South-South Nigeria. Location The Eleme people live in ten major towns situated in Eleme Local Government Area, Rivers State, around 20& ...

in the

Niger Delta The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states, which include: all six states from the South South geopolitic ...

Region of

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. Eleme is a Niger-Congo language spoken by approximately 40-50,000 speakers in

Rivers State Rivers is a states of Nigeria, state in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria (Old Eastern Region). Formed on 27 May 1967, when it was split from the former Eastern Region, Nigeria, Eastern Region, Rivers State borders include Imo State, Im ...

in southeast Nigeria. It belongs to the Ogonoid (also known as Ogoni or Kegboid) language group, within the Cross River branch of Benue-Congo. Eleme language was originally divided into two mutual dialects of Nchia and Odido. Nchia spoken in six communities of Agbonchia, Akpajo, Alesa, Aleto, Alode and Ogale, while Odido dialect was spoken at Ebubu, Ekporo, Eteo and Onne, today, both

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

s have submerged, with a few varying pronunciations. A unique feature of Eleme is that it uses

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...

to negate verbs.

Writing System

Nasal vowels are indicated with a tilde .

References

Works cited

* Indigenous languages of Rivers State Ogoni languages {{CrossRiver-lang-stub