The Ogoni languages, or Kegboid languages, are the five languages of the
Ogoni people of
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 ...
,
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, ...
.
They fall into two clusters, East and West, with a limited degree of
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...
between members of each cluster. The Ogoni think of the cluster members as separate languages.
The classification of the Ogoni languages is as follows:
* East:
Khana and
Tẹẹ, with around 1,800,000 speakers between them, and
Gokana, with about 250,000.
* West:
Eleme, with about 90,000 speakers, and
Baan, with around 50,500.
Names and locations
Below is a list of language names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019).
See also
*
List of Proto-Ogoni reconstructions (Wiktionary)
References
*Blench, Roger and Kay Williamson. 2008.
The Ogoni languages: comparative word list and historical reconstructions'.
{{Niger-Congo branches
Cross River languages
Indigenous languages of Rivers State