Mbe language

Mbe
Pronunciation	[m̀bè]
Spoken in	Nigeria
Region	Cross River State
Ethnicity	Mbube people
Native speakers	unknown (14,300 cited 1973)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Ekoid–Mbe Mbe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mfo

Mbe is a language spoken by the Mbube people of the Ogoja, Cross River State, region of Nigeria, numbering about 14,300 people in 1973.^[1] As the closest relative of the Ekoid family of the Southern Bantoid languages, Mbe is fairly close to the Bantu languages. It is tonal and has a typical Niger–Congo noun-class system.

Phonology

Vowels are i e ɛ a ɔ o u. Tones are high, low, rising, falling, and a downstep; rising and falling may be tone sequences.

Mbe has a rather elaborate consonant inventory compared to the Ekoid languages, presumably due to contact from neighboring Upper Cross River languages.

All Mbe consonants apart from the labial–velars (kp ɡb w) and n have labialized counterparts. (/jʷ/ is presumably [ɥ].) In addition, the non-labialized peripheral stops (m p b k g; palatalized ŋ would be ɲ) and the liquids (l r) have palatalized counterparts.

m mʷ mʲ	n	ɲ ɲʷ	ŋ ŋʷ
p pʷ pʲ	t tʷ		k kʷ̜ kʷ̹ kʲ	kp
b bʷ bʲ	d dʷ		ɡ ɡʷ ɡʲ	ɡb
	ts tsʷ	tʃ tʃʷ
	dz dzʷ	dʒ dʒʷ
f fʷ	s sʷ	ʃ ʃʷ
	r rʷ lʲ
	l lʷ lʲ	j jʷ		w

There are a few consonants that only occur in ideophones, such as /fʲ hʲ/.

An interesting additional contrast is between fortis and lenis /kʷ/. Fortis (long?) /kʷ̹/ half-rounds a following vowel such as /e/, whereas lenis /kʷ̜/ does not. This distinction may be being lost. (Blench)

References

• Roger Blench, 'Ekoid' (with Mbe)

1. ^ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/

External links

• Ethnologue report on Mbe
• Global Recordings Network: Mbe