Ibibio is the native language of the Ibibio people of

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

, belonging to the

Ibibio-Efik Central Ibibio is the major dialect cluster of the Cross River branch of Benue–Congo. Efik proper has national status in Nigeria and is the literary standard of the Efik languages, though Ibibio proper has more native speakers. Varieties E ...

dialect cluster of the

Cross River languages The Cross River or Delta–Cross languages are a branch of the Benue–Congo language family spoken in south-easternmost Nigeria, with some speakers in south-westernmost Cameroon. The branch was first formulated by Joseph Greenberg; it is one of ...

. The name ''Ibibio'' is sometimes used for the entire dialect cluster. In pre-

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

times, it was written with

Nsibidi Nsibidi (also known as nsibiri, nchibiddi or nchibiddy) is a system of symbols or proto-writing developed in what is now the far South of Nigeria. They are classified as pictograms, though there have been suggestions that some are logograms or sy ...

ideograms, similar to

Igbo Igbo may refer to: * Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria * Igbo language, their language * anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria See also * Ibo (disambiguation) * Igbo mythology * Igbo music * Igbo art * * Igbo-Ukwu, a ...

, Efik, Anaang, and Ejagham. Ibibio has also had influences on Afro-American diasporic languages such as AAVE words like

buckra Buckra or Backra is a term of West African origin. It is mainly used in the Caribbean and in the Southeast United States. Originally, it was used by slaves to address their white slave master. Later the meaning was broadened to describe white peopl ...

, and buckaroo, which come from the Ibibio word

mbakara Mbakara is a word in the Annang, Efik and Ibibio languages used for those in the Western world (Waddell 1891). Rather than be seen as a normative category, it is the description of a relationship between Africans in the West African coast of Calab ...

, and in the

Afro-Cuban Afro-Cubans or Black Cubans are Cubans of West African ancestry. The term ''Afro-Cuban'' can also refer to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community and the combining of native African and other cultural el ...

tradition of abakua.

Geographic distribution

Ibibio is the language of the Ibibio people. The Ibibio people are found in Southeastern Nigeria in

Akwa Ibom State Akwa Ibom State is a state in the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered on the east by Cross River State, on the west by Rivers State and Abia State, and on the south by the Atlantic Ocean. The state takes its name from the Qua Iboe ...

Cross River State ) , image_map = Nigeria - Cross River.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location of Cross River State in Nigeria , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint ...

, and Eastern Abia State (

Arochukwu Arochukwu Local Government Area, sometimes referred to as Arochuku or Aro Oke-Igbo, is the third largest local government area in Abia State (after Aba and Umuahia) in southeastern Nigeria and homeland of the Igbo subgroup, Aro people. It is ...

and

Ukwa East Ukwa East is a Local Government Area located in Abia State, Nigeria. Its headquarters is in the town of Akwete. Ukwa East is bordered by Akwa Ibom State and Rivers States. It has an area of 280 km and a population of 58,865 at the 2006 census. It ...

LGA's). Ibibio communities in Opobo Nkoro and

Oyigbo Oyigbo is a town, 30 kilometers from the port city of Port Harcourt and a local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria. Sir Precious Oforji was elected Chairman of the Oyigbo LGA in 2008. EZE Mike Nwaji was enthroned as the crowned traditional ...

LGA's of

Rivers State Rivers State, also known as Rivers, is a state in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria (Old Eastern Region). Formed in 1967, when it was split from the former Eastern Region, Rivers State borders include: Imo to the north, Abia and Akwa ...

are largely unknown. Some Ibibio are found in other countries (Western

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

Bioko Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...

and

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

Phonology

Consonants

* are

bilabial In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Frequency Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...

, whereas is

labiodental In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. Labiodental consonants in the IPA The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...

. ** has two allophones, which occur in complementary distribution: voiceless and voiced . * are alveolar , whereas is dental . * Stem-initial is realized as . Intervocalic plosives are

lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...

: * → * → * → or

Vowels

* are phonetically near-close . * are phonetically true-mid; is also strongly centralized: . * are phonetically near-open; is central rather than front: . Between consonants, have allophones that are transcribed , respectively. At least in case of , the realization is probably somewhat different (e.g. close-mid ), because the default IPA values of the symbols are very similar to the normal realizations of the Ibibio vowels . Similarly, may actually be near-close , rather than close . In some dialects (e.g. Ibiono), occur as phonemes distinct from .

Tones

Ibibio has five tones: high, mid, rising, falling and low. A word can be used to mean two or more different things based on the tone ascribed to it.

Orthography

References

Bibliography

External links

Ibibio kasahorow
– language resources, including dictionary, books and proverbs.
Bachmann's Master ThesisPaperPresentation

BOSS-IBB documentation v0.1-r4

ELAR_Documentation_of_Dirge_songs_among_the_Urban_people_[Efik,_Ibibio
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="fik, Ibibio">ELAR Documentation of Dirge songs among the Urban people [Efik, Ibibio
/nowiki>">fik, Ibibio">ELAR Documentation of Dirge songs among the Urban people [Efik, Ibibio
/nowiki>
ELAR Documentation of documenting drums and drum language in Ibibio traditional ceremonies
{{Authority control Languages of Nigeria Ibibio Ibibio-Efik languages