Uvbie language

Uvbie
Evrie
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Delta State
Ethnicity	Urhobo
Native speakers	20,000 (2000)^[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Edoid Southwestern Uvbie
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`evh`
Glottolog	`uvbi1238`^[2]

Uvbie (Uvwie, Evrie, or Evhro) is an Edoid language of Nigeria spoken by the Urhobo people.

Phonology

The Uvbie vowel system is hardly reduced from that reconstructed for proto-Edoid. There are nine vowels in two harmonic sets, /i e a o u/ and /ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ/.^[3]

The consonant system is also conservative, and nearly the same as that of Urhobo. The only significant differences are the loss of ɸ, ɣ, and of the distinction between l and n: these alternate, depending on whether the following vowel is oral or nasal. /ɾ, ʋ, j, w/ also have nasal allophones before nasal vowels.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		ɲ
Plosive	p b	t d	c ɟ	k ɡ	k͡p ɡ͡b
Fricative	f v	s z	ʃ dʒ			h
Trill		ɲ
Flap		ɾ
Approximant	ʋ	l [n]	j		w

References

↑ Uvbie at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Uvbie". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
↑ Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff

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