Urhobo is a South-Western
Edoid language spoken by the
Urhobo people
The Urhobos are a people located in southern Nigeria, near the northwestern Niger Delta. They are the major ethnic group in Delta State. The people of this ethnic group speak the Urhobo language. Their population is approximately 7 million.
Th ...
of southern
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, ...
. It is from the
Delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet
* D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...
and
Bayelsa States.
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,
and .
It has a conservative
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
inventory for an
Edoid language. It maintains three nasals, and only five oral consonants, , have nasal allophones before nasal vowels.
* is interchangeable with only before nasal vowels.
* can be heard as before non-front vowels.
* Nasal consonants can have allophones of nasalized approximants as , , , .
* Approximants are heard as nasalized approximants before and after nasal vowels.
* Velar fricatives can vary from being heard as to lowered fricatives and approximants . can also be heard as a palatal fricative before .
* Rhotics may have different realizations as alveolar or retroflex, and can be articulated as approximants , or taps . A retroflex lateral flap can also be heard in syllable-final position.
According to Anthony Ukere, Urhobo has two tones, a high tone and a low tone. These can also combine to form rising and falling tones.
[Ukere, Anthony Obakpọnọvwẹ. 1986]
Urhobo-English dictionary
Benin City: Ilupeju Press.
Syntax
Urhobo has the
subject–verb–object word order
In linguistic typology, subject–verb–object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements in unmarked sen ...
(SVO) constituent order type as illustrated with the example below:
References
General references
*Frank Kügler, Caroline Féry, Ruben Van De Vijver (2009) ''Variation and Gradience in Phonetics and Phonology''
Okrokoto Ebireri. Ukoko re Ephere R'Urhobo
{{Authority control
Edoid languages